CIHM 
Microfiche 
Series 
(l\/lonographs) 


ICMH 

Collection  de 
microfiches 
(monographies) 


H 


Canadian  InatituM  for  Hiatorical  Mieroraproductiona  /  Inatitut  Canadian  da  mieroraproduetlona  hlatoriquaa 


1995 


Technical  and  Bibliographic  Notes  /  Notes  technique  et  bibliographlques 


The  Institute  has  attempted  to  obtain  the  best  original 
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may  be  bibliographlcally  unique,  which  may  alter  any  of 
the  images  In  the  reproduction,  or  which  may 
significantly  change  the  usual  method  of  filming  are 
checked  below. 


0 


Coloured  covers  / 
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I     I  Covers  damaged  / 

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rn  Covers  restored  and/or  laminated  / 

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[^  Coloured  ink  (i.e.  other  than  blue  or  black)/ 

Encre  de  couleur  (i.e.  autre  que  bleue  ou  noire) 

r^  Coloured  plates  and/or  illustrattons/ 

— '  Planches  et/ou  illustrations  en  couleur 

I     I  Bound  with  other  material  / 

—  Reli*  avee  d'autres  documents 


n 


n 


D 


Only  edition  available  / 
Seule  edition  disponible 

Tight  binding  may  cause  shadows  or  distortion 
along  interior  margin  /  La  reliure  serree  peut 
causer  de  I'ombre  ou  de  la  distorsion  le  long  de 
la  marge  int^rieure. 

Blank  leaves  added  during  restotatkms  may  appear 
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been  omitled  from  filming  / 11  se  peut  que  certaines 
pages  blanches  ajouttes  lors  dune  restauration 
apparaissent  dans  le  texle,  mais,  k)rsque  cela  itait 
possible,  ces  pages  n'ont  pas  06  flmtes. 


L'Institut  a  microfilme  le  mellleur  examplaire  qu'll  lui  a 
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ode  normale  de  fllmage  sort  Indlques  cl-dessous. 

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I     I     Pages  damaged/ Pages  endommagdes 

I     1     Pages  restored  and/or  laminated/ 
—      Pages  restaurdes  et/ou  pellicultes 

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I     I     Quality  of  print  varies  / 

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I     I      Includes  supplementary  material  / 

Comprend  du  materiel  suppl^mentaire 

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Image  possible. 

I  I  Opposing  pages  with  varying  colouration  or 
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best  possible  image  /  Les  pages  s'opposant 
ayant  des  colorations  variables  ou  des  decol- 
orations sont  filmtes  deux  fois  alin  d'obtenir  la 
mellleur  image  possible. 


D 


Adcfthsnal  comments  / 
CommentairBS  suppl^fnentaires: 


Thii  ittm  ii  filmid  at  tin  rtduelion  rnio  chMlud  below/ 

C«  dociHinnt  nt  filmi  au  taux  da  rWuction  indiqui  ei-dan«n. 

'OX  14X  1«X 


SX 


20X 


Th*  copy  filmad  hara  hu  b««n  raproducad  thanki 
to  tha  ganaroaity  of: 

National  Library  of  Canada 


L'axamplaira  film*  fut  raproduit  grtea  t  la 
gtnarosit*  da: 

Bibliotheque  nationals  du  Canada 


Tha  imagaa  appaaring  hara  ara  tha  bast  quality 
pOMibIa  contidaring  tha  condition  and  lagibility 
of  tha  original  copy  and  in  kaaping  with  tha 
filming  contract  apacificationa. 


La*  imagaa  tuivantaa  ont  ttt  raproduitas  ivac  la 
piua  grand  aoin.  compta  tanu  da  la  condition  at 
da  la  nattata  da  I'axamplaira  film*,  at  an 
conformita  avac  laa  conditiona  du  contrail  da 
tilmaga. 


Original  copiaa  in  printad  papar  covara  ara  fllmad 
baginning  with  Mia  front  covor  and  anding  on 
tha  laat  paga  wiiti  a  printad  or  illuatratad  impraa- 
aion,  or  tha  back  eovar  whan  appropriata.  All 
othar  original  copiaa  ara  filmad  baginning  on  ttia 
firit  paga  with  a  printad  or  illuatratad  impras- 
aion.  and  anding  on  tha  laat  paga  with  a  printed 
or  illuatratad  impraaaion. 


Tha  laat  racordad  frama  on  vach  microf icha 
ahall  contain  tha  lymboi  —M'I  moaning  "CON- 
TINUED "I.  or  tha  symbol  V  (moaning  "END"), 
whichavar  appliaa. 


Laa  axamplalraa  originaux  dont  la  couvartura  an 
papiar  ast  imprimaa  (ont  fiimta  an  commancant 
par  la  pramiar  plat  at  an  tarminant  toil  par  la 
darnitra  paga  qui  comporta  una  amprainta 
d'impraasion  ou  d'illustration,  aoit  par  la  sacond 
plat,  aaion  la  caa.  Tou*  la*  auiraa  axamplairai 
originaux  aont  filmto  an  commandant  par  la 
pramMra  paga  qui  comporta  una  amprainta 
d'impraaaion  ou  d'illuatration  at  an  tarminant  par 
la  darnlAra  paga  qui  comporta  una  taila 
amprainta. 

Un  daa  aymbolaa  suivants  apparaitra  tur  la 
darnitra  imaga  da  ehaqua  microficha.  salon  la 
caa:  la  symbola  ^»  signifia  "A  SUIVRE",  la 
aymbola  ▼  aignifia  "FIN". 


Mapa,  plataa,  charts,  ate,  may  ba  filmad  at 
diffarant  raduction  ratios.  Thosa  too  larga  to  ba 
antiraly  includad  in  ana  axpoaura  ara  filmad 
baginning  in  tha  uppar  laft  hand  cornar.  laft  to 
right  and  top  to  bottom,  aa  many  framaa  as 
raquirad.  Tha  following  diagrama  illuatrata  tha 
mathod: 


Laa  cartas,  planchas.  tableaux,  ate.  pauvant  itra 
filmts  *  daa  taux  da  rtduction  diffaranis. 
Lorsqua  la  document  eat  trap  grand  pour  itra 
raproduit  an  un  aaul  clich*.  il  eat  film*  a  panir 
da  Tangle  supirieur  gauche,  de  gauche  i  droita, 
at  da  haut  an  baa,  an  pronant  le  nombre 
d'imegea  nacaaaaira.  Las  diagrammes  suivants 
illuatrant  la  mathodo. 


1  2  3 


1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

MKaocorr  >isoiution  test  chaut 

(ANSI  ond  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


_^  ^IPPLIED  |[VHGE    , 

^S*^  1653   Eoil   Main   Stmt 

5*^  f'ochMtef.   N«w   Vort.         14609       USA 

r.^  (716)  *82  -  0300  -  Phone 

^S  (716)  288 -5989 -Fox 


THE   VILLAGE  ARTIST 


t 


1 


The  Fillage  Artist 


By 

ADELINE  M.   ThiKET 

A*th'.r  ,f  Iflurt  ,tu  i>,.,  M,f,^  r,r.a, 


Tt  raise  ilii  gtmas,  and  h  -ttsi^  ;C  tu^'t,  . 
7«  mtie  maniinj  in  coauttti:  >->;.  ,..  !,^j 
Live  i'er  eeih  sitnt,  <i«  .'.  «4.^.  ■:■,.:,  1,,'iuli: 


F/emtng  H.   Revet!  Company 

liHdtn    and    E.i:n.;i,gj, 


/f 


r 


The  Village  Artist 


By 
ADELINE  M.  TESKEr 

Author  ,f"  Whir,  thi  Sugar  MapU  Grc«," 


To  v,ah  th,  louliy  tendtr  itrohs  of  art, 
lo  raise  the  genius,  and  to  mend  the  heart  ■ 
Jo  mate  mankind  in  comcious  virtue  hold. 
Live  0  er  each  scene,  and  be  what  they  iehold ' 


Neu,  rork         Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

London    and    Edinburgh 


261317 


Copyright,  190s,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  80  Wabash  Avenue 
Toronto:  27  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  11  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:     too    Princes    Street 


Contents 


I.  Mrs.  Simon  Slade  :  Artist 

II.  Mrs.  Slade's  Garden  . 
ni.  The  Garden's  Message 

IV.  The  Neighbours 

V.  "  Painting  up  Ben  Leith  " 

VI.  The  Church  Picture  Gallery 

VII.  The  Tea-Meeting       . 

VIII.  "  The  Little  Red  Schoolhouse  " 

IX.  The  Richest  Man  in  -  .£  Village 

X.  Of  Actors  and  Music 

XI.  The  Little  World  op  the  Post 

Office    . 

XII.  "An  Old  Settler"    . 

XIII.  Winter  Pleasures 

XIV.  A  Picture  of  Home  Life 

XV.  "Well   in   the    Middle   of   the 

Street  " 


7 

22 

35 

52 

65 

79 

96 

105 

'*3 

'34 

"5' 
168 
176 
191 

206 


The  Fill  age  Artist 


MRS.  SIMON  SLADE  ■ 
ARTIST 

Ti..  1,      1'  ^*°'™  seen  the  world 

The»„„„..r™"o;sit'aCt^s.ri't:^. 

|E  were  a  quiet  kind 
of  people  in  the  vil- 
lage, going  around 
with  a  dreamy  slow 
look    in    our  eyes, 
perhaps    seeing   very  little    on    the 
outside,   but  living   a   great  world 
within,"  said  Mrs.  Simon  Slade,  one 
7 


THE  FILL  AGE  ARTIST 


day  I  had  succeeded  in  launching 
her  on  one  of  her  delightful  remi- 
niscent talks.  "  We  knew  nothing 
about  what  some  people  call  prog- 
ress, we  were  always  behind  in  the 
fashions,  and  thought  very  little 
about  the  great  big  world  beyond 
our  own  neighbourhood,  so  we 
looked  on  Mrs.  Fitzpatrick  as  a 
kind  of  curiosity  when  she  came  to 
live  among' us." 

I  was  interested,  and  in  reply  to 
a  few  questions  from  me  she  con- 
tinued : 

"Mrs.  Fitzpatrick  was  bom  and 
raised  in  the  village,  and  was  a  nice 
enough  sensible  girl  before  she  ever 
left  it.  She  had  a  kind  of  good  look 
in  her  face  in  those  old  past  days, 
as  if  she  had  the  evidence  of  things 
not  seen— I  suppose  it  was  that  look 


MRS.  SIMON  SLADE 


Fitzpatrick  fell  in  love  with  when 
he  asked  her  to  marry  him  and  go 
off  to  the  city. 

"  She  probably  never  would  have 
come  back  to  the  village  only  that 
the  old  homestead  was  left  her,  and 
—well,  she  was  obliged  to.  Fitz- 
patrick had  died,  and  there  wasn't 
overly  much  left,  what  with  tlieatres, 
and  concerts,  and  stylish  Dlothes,  and 
she  was  glad  to  fall  back  on  the  old 
home  and  a  cheap  place  to  live  in. 

"  But,  my,  she  was  restless  !  Her 
eyes  that  used  to  be  soft  and  blue, 
with  kind  of  deep  places  in  them' 
where  you  could  imagine  something 
mysterious  and  not  altogether  of  this 
world  was  hiding,  had  grown  hard 
and  shifty,  too  hard  and  slippery- 
like  for  even  a  thought  to  have  a 
resting-place  in  them ;  and  she  was 


10  THE  VILUGE  ARTIST 


always  wanting  eomething  sho  did 
not  have. 

"  She  complained  a  great  deal  that 
there  waa  no  society  in  the  village, 
no  concerts  or  operas,  nor  anything 
to  Make  life  worth  living. 

"  She  was  in  her  most  discontented 
mood  one  day  when  I  carried  her 
over  a  glass  of  boiled  custard  I  had 
just  made  fresh— I  knew  her  mother 
when  she  was  a  girl. 

"  She  only  took  time  to  thank  me 
for  the  custard  when  she  broke  out, 
'  This  village  is  an  awful  little  hole 
to  live  in,  nothing  to  either  see,  or 
hear,  or  enjoy  in  any  way — a  strip  of 
common,'  she  says,  scornfully  waving 
her  hand  (which  she  took  great  pains 
to  keep  white)  out  towards  the  vacant 
lot  in  front  of  her  house, '  a  pool  of 
water  in  the  middle  of  it,  and  a  row 


MRS.  SIMON  SLADE 


II 


of  poplars— and  it  will  he  more  un- 
endurable in  winter,'  she  says.    (She 
got  to  talking  very  nice  and  using 
high-sounaing  words  since  she  had 
lived    in    the   city.)     But   she  was 
really  pale  and  all  fagged  out  with 
hearing,  and  seeing,  and  doing  noth- 
ing, so  I  thought  I'd  paint  a  little 
just  to  cheer  her  up  a  bitr— bring  out 
the  colours  of  things  she  could  see 
and  hear,  or  sense  in  some  way,  sit- 
ting on  her  own  stoop. 

"  'A  new  piece  of  embroidery  work 
every  week  is  that  old  strip  of 
common,'  I  says,  'green  background 
with  sometimes  bluebells  thrown  on, 
sometimes  white  daisies  with  brown 
hearts,  sometimes  pink  clovers,  or 
buttercups,  or  dandelions.  The  pat- 
tern changes  and  changes,  before  we 
tire  of  one  another  comes ;  and  it's 


•  2  THE  y ILL  AGE  ARTIST 


the  home  of  perhaps  thousandt  of 
protty  flashing  things,  if  we'd  only 
the  eyes  to  see  them.     There's  the 
ant  in  glossy  black  suit,  and  the 
red  ladybug,  and  the  blue  bottle-fly, 
and    all    the   handsome   caterpillar 
and  moth  family.    Then  the  heavens 
above  are  down  in  that  little  pool  of 
ater  every  day,  blue  one  day  and 
gray  the  next,'  I  says,  '  perhaps  with 
great  sailing  clouds,  but  never  two 
days  the  same.     And  on  clear  white 
nights  you'll  find  the  moon  and  stars 
down  there  too.' 

" '  Why  I  never  thought  of  looking 
for  all  that;  said  Mrs.  Fitzpatrick, 
peering  curiously  over  at  the  little 
puddle  of  water.  '  I  remember  now 
I  did  see  the  full  moon  reflected 
there  one  night.' 
"  '  In  wintsr  time  fairies  seem  to 


MRS.  SIMON  SLJDE 


'3 


take  in  hand  the  old  common. 
How  else  can  each  blade  of  grass 
and  faded  flower-stalk  shimmer  in 
silver  gown  and  jewels,  and  the  pool 
become  one  big  diamond  itself'  I 
says. 

"'Three  hundred  and  sixty-five 
times  a  year  evening  hangs  her  great 
picture  across  the  western  heavens, 
giving  us  a  new  design  every  time. 
I  don't  wonder  a  mite,'  I  says, '  that 
those  poplars  over  there  are  trem- 
bling with  delight  at  the  scene  that's 
before  them  this  minute.' 

"  Mrs.  Fitzpatrick  looked  quickly 
over  at  the  setting  sun,  which  she 
could  see  from  her  front  stoop, 
retiring  in  all  his  trappings  of 
purple  and  gold  and  crimson ;  then 
she  looked  half  scared  at  the  shiver- 
ing poplars. 


14  THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

"  •  One  would  think,'  says  she, '  to 
hear  you  talk,  that  those  trees  were 
people.' 

" '  Trees  almost  seem  like  people  to 
me,'  I  says ; '  living  beside  them  year 
after  year  you  get  to  love  them.  I 
think  to  know  one  good  old  tree-ont 
tree  which,  through  the  storms  of  a 
long  life  has  stood  straight  and 
strong,  smiling  up  into  the  face  of 
God — helps  you.' 

"  She  looked  over  at  the  poplars 
again. 

'"Then  morning  comes  stealing, 
stealing  in,  touching  every  common- 
place thing  with  her  pink  fingers, 
making  it  at  least  for  a  moment,' 
uncommon.  And  every  flowering 
shrub  and  tree  pours  incense  in  her 
path.  Did  you  ever  go  into  an 
apple    orchard  at  blossoming  time 


MRS.  SIMON  SLADE 


^ 

just  before  sunrise?'  I  gays,  laying 
aside  my  paint-brush,  so  to  speak,  to 
ask  her  the  question. 

"  She  thought  a  moment,  and  then 
she  said  she  did  not  believe  she  ever 
got  up  that  early,  except  when  she 
was  a  baby. 

Well,'  I  says,  '  if  you  got  into  a 
drug-store  when  the  corks  were  out 
of  all  the  perfumery  bottles,  you 
wouldn't  smell  anything  half  so 
sweet. 

After  the  coming  of  dawn  is  the 
meeting  of  sun  and  earth,'  I  says, 
'  and  everything  puts  its  best  foot  for- 
ward for  that,  same  as  if  'twas  for  a 
wedding.    The  flowers  wake  up  and 
open  their  eyes  that  were  shut  all 
night,  and  every  leaf  and  twig,  every 
wheel  and  thread  of  cobweb  is  hung 
with  diamonds.     The  choir  of  birds 


'"You  never  get  a  chance  to  h« 

ay  Its  the  broad  smile  of  the  sun 
-d  another  day  it,  the  wt  W 
"in;  and  the  wind  '  I  «„       ,      ^ 

::;^--.andsi;;^;;,-:-: 

and^aga.  howling  ,i.e  a  cross  hus-' 

thisdvt'  r  "°^'  ''^  --*« 

familv     o  ^^''  '*^^y'^«  a  big 

wh"ffof?"''''°*'^^«'^^°"geta 

^h^ffofit,  perhaps  carried  to  you 
When    you   were  a  small   body 

2'^dg,ng  the  country  road  to  schoof 
A  sqmrrel  was  darting  in  and  out  bl" 


MRS.  SIMON  SLADE 


>7 

tween  the  fence  rails,  a  grasshopper 
was  playing  his  sharp  fiddle  in  the 
mulleins,  a  bobolink,  in  white  coat 
and  black  vest,  laughed  for  pure  joy, 
it  was  such  a  nice  day;  and  you' 
could  hear  the  ring  of  an  axe  way 
off  in  the  bush.    The  clover  blos- 
soms were  growing  by  the  roadside, 
and  now  e-  ,ry  time  you  smell  clover 
that  picture  comes  up  before  your 
heart's  eye  jml  as  fresh  as  if  it  were 
not  years  and  years  old.     Another 
scent  puts  you  in  mind  of  your  wed- 
ding day,  or  the  day  and  the  place 
where  your  William,  or  John,  or 
Simon    proposed    to    you-perhaps 
kissed  you  for  the  first  time.     You'll 
remember  you  went  around  that  day 
thinking  all  the  world  was  yours ; 
the  birds  sang  special  songs  for  you,' 
and  the  flowers  were  never  so  largj 


i8         THE  VI.IUGE  JRT/ST 


and  bright  before.  God  hung  His 
moon  that  evening  just  outside  your 
bedroom  window,  and  His  stars  sang 
to  the  music  of  your  heart.  And 
the  scent  of  one  little  flower,  per.iaps 
a  sweetbrier  or  wild  violet,  brings 
the  whole  scene  back. 

Then  perhaps  another  scent  re- 
minds you  of  your  mother  and  the 
day  you  laid  her  away  with  a  white 
rose  in  her  folded  hands  in  surs  and 
certain'  hope  of  the  resurrection ;  and 
you  think  of  the  golden  streets  and 
the  gates  of  pearl,  the  harps  and  the 
palms,  and  you  forget  all  the  lone- 
someness  and  scarcity  and  bareness 
of  this  life,  and  feel  that  it  is  worth 
While  to  be  immortal.' 

"The  fagged  look  had  left  Mrs. 
Fitzpatriek's  face,  and  she  was  look- 
ing real  interested. 


MRS.  SIMON  SLADE  ,9 

Then  we  are  treated  to  e  uoncert 
from  daylight  until  dark,'  I  says,  'a 
concert  you  cannot  hear  at  all,  with 
the  other  noises,  when  you  are  in  the 
city.     For  a  soprano,  I  never  heard 
one   that  could   take  higher  notes 
than  Cricket;  and  for  a  bass,  lower 
notes  than  Bumblebee.     And  then 
the  crowd  of  musicians  that  comes 
in  between  these  two.    There's  now 
and  then  a  bird-song,'  I  says,  '  that 
strikes  the  ear  of  your  soul,  and  lifts 
you  right  up  and  away  from  all  the 
toil  and  grind  and  disappointment 
of  life,  and  rests  you-you  never  can 
tell  how— and  you  go  back  to  work 
again  glad  that  you  live. 

'"As  fcr  society,'  I  says,  'I  don't 
know  as  I  make  out  well  what  you 
mean.  For  myself,  I  don't  get  much 
time  to  be  alone.     There's  the  dog : 


^OTHE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


he  follows  round  after  me,  sits  down 
when  I  sit  down  and  walks  when  I 
walk,  and  pays  so  much  attention  to 
me  that  I  cannot  well  get  out  of  pay- 
mg  some  attention  to  him..     Even  a 
dog  will  have   friends  if  he  fhows 
himself  friendly.     And    the  ducks 
and  the  chickens  gabble  to  me  every 
time  I  go  near  them  ;  and  although 
I  do  not  understand  their  language, 
it  does  i;iot  seem  polite  not  to  answer 
back.    Then  my  canary  in  his  cage  ■ 
he'd  feel  hurt  if  I  did  not  chirp  at 
him  a  few  times  each  day.    I  play 
with  the  children  and  neighbour  a 
good  deal.' 

"'Yes,'  she  said,  'you're  a  good 
neighbour,  and  you're  a  great  artist 
too.  You've  brought  out  the  local 
colours,'  she  says,_you  remember  I 
told    you   she   used    high-sounding 


^RS.  SIMON  SLADE 


words-' in  a  way  that  I  shall  not 
soon  forget.  Mrs.  Slade,'  says  she, 
'you've  painted  the  glory  of  tho 
commonplace.' " 


II 


MRS.  SLIDE'S  GARDEN 

w™ki     1    '.''■''''"""■W'' no  blot  for  ns, 
T^fln^", '  "  ""^"''  .'"tenwly.  and  me«nH  good  • 
To  find  ite  meaning  is  my  meat  and  drinlcT^ 

I  HERE  are  days,"  said 
Mrs.  Slade,"that 
the  kingdom  of  God 
seems  to  come  very 
nigh  to  man.    Mar- 
coni   must    have    felt  it  when  he 
learned  his  great  secret.     And  all  the 
rest  of  them,  discoverers  and  invent- 
ors, when  they  heard  the  whispers  of 
electricity  and  steam,  or  learned  how 
to    put    together  a  great  machine. 
The  secrets  of  nature  are  floating 
round  us  everywhere,  and  I  haven't 
a  doubt  we'd  hear  more  of  them  if 


MRS.  SLIDE'S  GARDEN 


23 


we  were  not  addling  our  brains  with 
something  of  less  importance.  It  is 
given  one  person  to  hear  one  class  of 
secrets,  and  to  another  a  different 
claij." 

She  was  leaning  her  arms  on  the 
fence  which  separated  our  yards,  and 
talking  to  me,  a  summer  resident  of 
the  village. 

"Sometimes,"  she  continued,  let- 
ting her  eyes  follow  the  flight  of  a 
swallow,  "  I  think  it  has  been  given 
me  to  paint  pictures  so  as  to  show 
people  the   things   that   are  'rc-md 
them.    Things  they  won't  see  unless 
some  one  takes  God's  great  broad , 
picture  and  puts  it  in  sections  on  a 
small  canvas  before  their  very  eyes." 
She  paused  again,  and  I  waited. 
"  'Seems  as  if  I  found  out  a  good 
deal  of  the  world  when  I  began  to 


H  THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

work  in  this  garden,"  she  resumed, 
waving  her  hand  out  towards  the 
small    plot  of  ground  which    sur- 
rounded  her  home.     "  When  Simon 
and  I  were  married  we  came  to  live 
here  in  this  house  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  village.     Just  as  soon  as  we 
were  settled  inside  the  house  I  saw 
that  the  yard  was  in  bad  shape,  had 
been  -so  ever  since  the  house  was 
built.    The  clay  that  was  thrown  out 
when  the  cellar  was  dug  had  been 
left  lying  in  heaps,  and  there  it  lay 
through  the  years.     Of  course  it  got 
trampled  down  some,  and  the  grass 
had  grown  over  it,  and,  just  as  grass 
will,  like  a  beautiful  cloak  of  charity 
it  covered  a  multitude  of  ugliness, 
but  still  the  yard  was  very  uneven, 
full  of  great  humps  and  hollows.' 
As  I  said,  we  were  just  new  married, 


MRS.  SLIDE'S  GARDEN 


and  Simon  would  have  done  any- 
thing any  man  cnuld  do  at  that  time 
to  please  me.  Those  of  us  who  are 
most  partial  to  them  must  admit  that 
men  get  a  little  over  those  obliging 
ways  as  time  goes  on,— but  he  was 
very  busv,  and  I  hated  to  ask  him  to 
fill  in  those  hollows.  So  I  says  to 
myself,  '  When  he's  away  from  home 
between  meal  times  I'll  do  it.' 

"  I  took  a  basket  and  a  shovel  and 
went  off  to  where  some  earth  was 
lying  loose.  I  put  as  much  as  I 
could  carry  into  the  basket,  and  in 
this  way  began  to  fill  up  the  un- 
evenness  in  the  yard.  I  worked  al- 
most a  week  before  Simon  noticed— 
men  are  not  as  sharp  for  noticing 
little  things  close  by  them  as  women 
— but  he  insisted  when  he  learned 
my  intentions  on  rising  early  every 


26  THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


morning,  and  before  breakfast  with 
a  shovel  and  a  wheelbarrow,  wnich 
he  had  borrowed  from  a  neighbour, 
he  was  not  long  in  getting  enough 
clay  to  level  the  whole  yard. 

'"Men  are  quite  handy  to  have 
'round  at  times;  said  Miss  Finch,  one 
of  my  neighbours  when  she  saw  how 
quickly  the  work  had  been  done. 
She  never  bothered  with  a  man,  and 
always  spoke  slightingly  of  them. 

"  Next  I  wanted  grass  seed  to  sot? 
the  brown  clay  which  did  not  look 
very  well  dotting  the  green  grass, 
and  as  money  was  not  any  too  plenty 
with  us  at  that  time,  I  cast  about  in 
my  mind  how  I  might  get  the  grass 
seed  at  lowest  cost.  Just  watching 
some  pretty  graceful  pigeons  flying 
in  and  out  through  a  hayloft  window 
put  an  idea  into  my  head.     '  I'll  get 


MRS.  SLADE'S  GARDEN 


*7 

neighbour  White  to  let  mo  brush"^ 
the  hayseed  that  will  bo  lying  thick 
on  the  floor  of  that  loft,'  I  says  to 
that  inner  something  we  call  myself; 
'it  being  spring  the  hay  wL.  be 
nearly  all  eaten  up  by  his  horses.' 

"  Well,  I  got  the  seed  and  sowed 
it,  and  in  no  time -although  I'll 
confess  I  was  watching  it  so  hard  it 
seemed  a  long  time  tliai~it  came  up 
as  green  and  pretty  as  you  please, 
creeping,  creeping  everywhere,  as  the 
poet  says. 

"  In  the  front  corner  of  the  yard 
at  the  right-hand  side  was  an  ugly 
heap  of  stones;  not  nice  round 
stones,  glistening  as  if  they  were 
full  of  all  the  precious  jewels  men- 
tioned in  Revelations,  but  jagged 
slatey  stones  you  couldn't  imagine  a 
beauty   in.     I  wanted   those  stores 


28  THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


moved  away,  but,  as  I  said,  I  couldn't 
bear   to   ask  Simon  to  move  them. 
So  it  came  to  me,  '  plant  one  of  these 
little   vines,  that   search   out   every 
nook  and  corner,  beside  the  stone- 
pile,'  and  I  went  to  the  bush  and  got 
me  a  wild  clematis.    To  make  a  long 
story  short,  the  vine  grew,  and  after 
awhile  I  would  not  have  that  stone- 
pile  moved  for  a  good  slice  off  Car- 
negie's fortune— if  Andrew  had  his 
money  made  at  that  time.     Bits  of 
the  gray  stone  peeped  out  here,  and 
stuck    out    a    jagged    point    there, 
through    the    delicate    green   vines 
with  their  starry  sprays  of  white 
blossoms,  until   one  might  think  I 


had  made  a  study  to  fix  them  just 


so. 


Who  taught  you,  Mrs.  Slade, 
how  to  arrange  your  rockery  ? '  says 
Mrs.  Murray  to  me— she's  our  fine 


MRS.  SLyJDE'S  GARDEN        29 

lady  you  know,  and  bp."  f-.ui.ntains 
and  ferneries,  and  ever  tiling  in  hr: 
garden  'cept  a  stone-pi]  v—one  diy 
she  stopped  to  admire  my  garden. 

" '  I  didn't  arrange  it,  Mrs.  Mur- 
ray,' I  says,  '  I  just  planted  the  vines 
and  let  the  rest  happen.' 

"She  laughed  one  of  her  little 
bubbling  laughs,  that  always  put  me 
in  mind  of  a  warbling  vireo,  and 
says  she,  •  You  just  let  it  occur.' 

"At  the  same  time  that  I  put  a 
clematis  at  the  stone-pile,  I  planted 
another  at  the  left-hand  front  corner 
of  the  house ;  and  it  grew  to  the  roof 
falling  in  a  shower  of  green  leaves 
and  white  starry  blossoms  all  sum- 
mer long.  Then  there  was  a  stump 
almost  at  the  very  front  door-step 
which  affronted  me.  But  its  roots 
were  in  firm  and  there  was  no  hope 


30         THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


of  moving  it  out  of  its  place  ;  so  I 
dug  a  hole  down  into  the  heart  of  it 
—its    heart    being  softer  than  the 
heart  of  some  folks  I  know— put  in 
a  little  earth,  and  planted  it  full  of 
cardinal  flower.     Even  Simon,  man 
and  all  as  he  is,  noticed  how  well 
those  red  flowers  looked  in  that  gray 
stump.     Of  course   it  was  a  great 
care   to   ke^p   it  damp  enough,  for 
cardinal    flower    out    in    the    wild 
generally  grows  near  water;  but  to 
those  who  love,  care  is  ajoy. 

"Then  I  went  out  to  the  fields 
and  the  woods,  and  got  me  meadow 
rhae  and  ferns,  violets  and  trilliums, 
johnny-jump-ups  and  twin-floAvered 
honeysuckle,  wild  columbine  and 
bluebell,  Jack-in-the-pulpit  and 
bouncing-Bet,  sweetbrier  and  iris,  and 
planted  full  every  corner  of  my  yard. 


^m '':%*■! ''Ml 


MRS.  SLADE  S  GARDEN 


3' 


"I   brought  buttercups  from  the 

fields,  and  at  the  hack  of  the  yard  I 
planted  them  in  a  thick  border,  and 
behind  them  I  planted  a  row  of 
black-eyed  Susan.  They  both  flow- 
ered at  the  same  time  and  had  yel- 
low flowers,  so  I  called  that  my  sun- 
set corner.  The  buttercups  flower 
all  the  season. 

"Simon  laughed  when  I  pJanted 
the  buttercups  and  said  they  were 
nothing  but  weeds,  but  I  says, ' '  call 
them  miracles,  coming  up  each  year 
with  no  one  planting  and  'tending 
them  but  God.'    And  one  time  when 
1  was  shut  in  for  weeks  with  my 
poor  ailing  eyes,  I  could   see  that 
bordor  of  cheery  gold  nodding  and 
smiling  to  me  there  in  that  darkened 
room.     -That    picture,'   I    says    to 
Simon,  'which  I  carry  with  me  every- 


32 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


where  I  go,  can  neither  be  bought 
nor  stolen.' 

"  I  have  often  wondered  how  many 
others  have  carried  away  from  my 
garden  a  picture  to  hang  in  some 
corner,  some  hidden  corner  perhaps, 
on  memory's  wall,  to  turn  out  and 
look  at  on  dark  and  gloomy  days. 
It  has  made  me  think  a  great  deal 
more  of  planting  a  garden  than  I 
once  did.  When  I  am  planting  a 
bed  of  violets,  or  primroses,  or  any- 
thing else  beautiful,  how  do  I  know, 
when  that  bed  is  in  full  bloom,  who 
is  going  to  carry  it  away  in  his 
heart,  to  have  and  to  hold  as  a  pre- 
cious thing  from  thait  time  forth  and 
forever  more.  For  sometimes  our 
moat  valuable  possessions,  which  no 
eye  shall  ever  feast  upon  but  our 
own  inward  eye,  is  something  we 


if  m 


grasp  of  a  hand,  or  the  glance  of  a 
eye  or  by  son,e  hidden  sense  we  ca" 
|^3:therna.e  .derstand.   Piar 

>ng^.Whedisa..g,ou3.or^ 

"  Then,  it  may  have  been  imagina- 
-n.  but  I  thought  the  wiidthS 
fae  butterflies,  bees,  and  birds,  found 
T  ""'  '"''"  ^-^en  and  crowded 

"•ere  With  their  bright  dresses  and 
musical  voices,  and  n,ade  of  n.y  little 

;™nt  yard  a  grand  banqueting  pla 
I  became  acquainted  with  th!m  a   ' 
from  the  humming-bird  th  T         ' 
to  feeing        ,     "^ ''™' tbat  seemed 

to  feel  no  need  of  rest  or  residence  to 
*ne  snail  carrv.r.^  u-    .  ' 

back-an^f     ^!^     ''^°"'^°°bis 

and  h  '"""^  ^^*^^-  «-tb 

and  heaven,  to  the  brown  toad  on  the 
ground  watching  for  his  fly 


hhv^v-'hp 


34 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Slade,  smiling 
reminiscently,  while  she  picked  up 
her  garden  hoe  preparatory  to  going 
into  the  house,  "  that  was  Simon's 
and  my  first  year  together,  I  don't 
know  whether  that  had  anything  to 
do  with  making  it  one  of  the  bright- 
est and  happiest  years  of  my  life." 


Ill 

THE  GARDEN'S  MESSAGE 

Where  b.os«,:„edth''?,»etStrrn„t,. 

LJKE  to  think  of 
some  good  my  gar- 
den has  done  be- 
sides pleasing  my- 
®**^^~and  Simon  " 
continued    Mrs.    Slade.     (We    frl 

'l-ntlyhadneighbourlychats.some- 
t^'^eszn  the  sitting-room  of  one  of 
ourhomes;sometimesi„  her  garden 
«mes  across   the   back    w; 
I  always   think   that    my  flowers 

Dohert;    '^"    '^''''''    '°   ^"^« 
35 


36 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


"  Jule  had  come  from  somewhere, 
no  one  knew  where,  to  take  care  of 
a  wool  depot  in  the  village.  It  was 
thought  she  came  from  the  country 
because  she  knew  all  about  wool. 
Jule  was  good-looking,  but  with  a 
hard  white  look  in  her  face,  which 
somehow  made  me  shiver,  and  she 
was  sullen,  and  silent,  and  cross.  A 
whisper  hqd  followed  Jule  into  the 
village  that  she  was  not  what  she 
ought  to  be ;  when  people  told  what 
they  had  heard  about  her  they  talked 
under  their  breath.  When  the  girls 
of  the  village  met  her  on  the  street 
they  looked  at  her  curiously,  or  else 
looked  in  another  direction,  and  the 
boys — some  of  them — stared  boldly 
at  her.  'Twas  said  that  Ben  Leitb 
would  wink  at  her  if  he  could  catch 
her  eye  (Ben  was  no  better  than  he 


^he'l'::,fr'^'"^'«'h«  village 

'    poor  young  tl„„g  «„!     ^ 
teen— and  soon  niarlp  .> 

alone    X  ''"^"^«'^*«''«  left 

^o:::an?mr^^^.^-- 

-^^'ownandlr^Vr" 
again.  ^  ^°  Set   up 


38  THE  VlLLAiiE  ART  LSI 


tell,— this  was  before  tlio  evil  whi.s- 
pers  regarding  her  past  life  had  come 
to  the  place.     But  Jule  saw  her  com- 
ing, and   slammed   and   bolted   the 
door  in  her  face.     Another  woman 
sent  her  little  girl  in  with  a  few  hot 
buns,  just  from  the  oven,  as  a  sort 
of  friendship  offering  ;  but  the  child 
was   crossly  ordered  to  carry  them 
home    again.     So   in   a   very  short 
time  the  village  learned  that  there 
was  no  way  of  r£..ohing  Jule's  heart. 
"'She's    a    ban    one,'   said    Mrs. 
Brady,  '  or  Ben   Leith  wouldn't  be 
winkin'  at  her  ! ' 

"  '  She  never  darkens  the  door  of 
a  church  or  Sunday-school,'  said 
Mrs.  McTavish,  '  and  she's  but  a  slip 
of  a  girl  yet.  It's  terrible  to  see  a 
young  thing  so  hardened,  and  be- 
yond   the   reach   o'   gude.     It  does 


"o  oaa — born  deevils  tr,  u 

one  8  born  to  be  damned.' 

of  "Z*"'^  ^'"   '^'"   "^^^^  'heir  day 

handed  that  girl  a  tract  last  Sunday 
an' she  rolled  it  into  a  ball  an' firedTt' 

at/t?;"'^---  ^-p>e^-  i 

away  their  day  o'  crano  t  f  n 
"  Ti,      •  ,  .       fcrace,  1  tell  you    ' 


40  THE  I' ILL  AGE  yfRT/ST 


when  her  eyes  fell  on  my  garden. 
She  was  looking  ut  the  sunset-corner 
where  I  had  the  buttercups  planted. 
Her  eyes  got  large  for  a  moment, 
then  they  seemed  to  sink  away,  as 
though  she  were  thinking  hard 
about  something.  A  queer  shadow 
swept  her  face,  and  she  hurried  on 
past  the  house,  the  red  ribbons  of 
her  hat  flying  out  behind  her  like 
something  real  and  alive  was  after 
her. 

"  The  next  morning  I  saw  her 
come  again,  stealing  along  this  time, 
and  looking  all  around  her,  as  if 
to  see  whether  any  one  was  noticing 
her,  and  stand  gazing  at  my  yellow 
wild  flowers.  Before  she  left  that 
morning  I  saw  her  wipe  away  a  tear 
— or  wipe  her  eyes  anyway. 

"  For  three  days  she  came  just  so, 


den    near    the  yello.   border,   Z 
'^»-Jn,g  on  the  ground  she  releed 

ngers.     She    shuddered   when    th 
P--oft  thing.  ,een.ed  to  i      ,: 
''«nd.     Shedrewitnuicklvf    ? 
if  thev  h..,}    .  'luicicjy  hack  as 

mey  had  stung  her  irul  ; 

-^;;;^eet3hea,Lt;rarr"^ 

a^alnaVLlrrr^^^-- 
hand  through   h™   ^^'^  ^^"''^^^d  her 

ahandfu    oftrur"'^^"^'^' 

selfthp,    )„,      ^^'^^  them  to  her- 
shook  .       „  '     "'■"'y^'^f!  and 

Pieces      'V'      "     '  "  '''^''^  '^ake  to 
K-, T         *""  °"*  and  cheer  her  ud  a 

K'sa,s8i.on(hehadgoteur2:: 


42 


THE  TILLAGE  ARTIST 


I 


and  was  peeping  through  the  shutter 
at  her  too),  but  I  says,  '  Let  her  cry 
a  spell,  crying  will  maybe  do  her 
good.  Sometimes,'  I  says,  '  I  think 
God  unseals  our  eyes  by  washing 
them  with  tears.'  While  we  were 
talking  she  laid  her  face  down  in  the 
grass,  with  the  buttercups  placed 
close  to  her  cheek,  and  cried,  and 
cried.  Then  she  got  up  and  went 
away. 

"  That  night  as  luck  would  have 
it  (I  always  feel  a  twinge  of  con- 
science when  I  use  that  word  luck), 
some  cattle  broke  into  my  garden. 
Thf-y  seemed  to  make  straight  for 
mj'  border  of  buttercups,  ate  all  the 
tops  off"  them,  and  trampled  the 
plants  down  into  the  dust.  My 
beautiful  yellow  border !  I  could 
have  cried!    I  saw  what  had  hap- 


the  shutters  to  see  whether  JuleT 

o-ng.     Idre.ed,putonn.;s:n 

Oonnet    and  rushed  out.     There " 

«t-d  gating  at  the  desolate  waste 

-hen  Ju,eea.e  along.     UeeZt 

netf:rrr'^''^'^'*'^-^-nbon- 

ne  ,  for  I  fe^ew  she  had  come  with- 
out  turnmg  around.     I  knew  <,u 

mthout  looking  .then  called  out, 

cups      Sh  "     ""  "^  P°°^  ^"«- 
7u  '  '""'""^  t°  forget  herself 

a;i  her  old  sullennessand'eros  less 
«nd  stepping  through  the  gate,  she 

"rTr'«-^-IwasstLdi'nr 
■I  says,  almost  crying  whiln  T  »♦        ". 


w 


44 


THE  yiLLAGE  ARTIST 


"  Jule  seemed  to  feel  sorry  for  me, 
for  she  spoke  up,  and  says  she,  with 
a  comforting  sound  in  her  voice, 

"  'Oh,  they'll  come  up  again  ;  the 
roots  are  there,  and  they'll  grow 
again  and  be  as  nice  as  ever  next 
summer.' 

"  Then  I  says,  straightening  up 
and  looking  at  her  (I'll  never  know 
what  made  me  say  it),  '  Isn't  it  beau- 
tiful the  way  God  gives  everything  a 
chance  to  try  again — a  chance  for 
another  summer  ? ' 

"  Jule  turned  and  looked  at  me,  a 
quick  frightened  look,  and  says  al- 
most under  her  breath  :  '  Everything 
but  a  woman.' 

"  I  had  not  thought  of  the  whis- 
pers about  her  past  life  since  she  had 
come  into  my  garden  until  I  saw 
that   look,  and   heard   these  words. 


-nd  I  acted  as  if  J  did  not  notice 
them  and  went  on  tallcing. 

'"ItseemsasifbythevervlittJp 
buttercups  and  growing  things 

that  when  we're  broken  down  and 
-P^ed  on.  and  our  lives  areVa 
a  mess  of,  just  to  start  fresh  and  try 
'tall  over  again.     He'll  keep  on  «v 
"ig  us  His  smile  anrf  w    ^      ^'"^ 
iust  fl,  H   .  "'"  presence 

autre      V     '^^""^'"^^"gH- sun 
aud  refreshing  showers  to  them.' 

Italkedoninasortoframblin. 
way,  smoothing    anrf    „  «•  ^ 

Iiff;«  ^'  patting  and 

hftmg  some  of  the  heads  of  my  poor 

1X1         ?^''^^^«°*  *« -ting 
towards  my  flowers  the  same  as  if 

-trr  '.^'^^' -^  — ^  4 

acLr'"''"^^^^""^^'-  there's 
a  chance  for  another  summer,' when 


+6 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


suddenly  I  looked  up  and  saw  that 
Jule  was  crying  a  little  soft  easy  cry 
without  any  noise. 

" '  These  buttercups  are  just  like 
the  ones  that  grow  at  home  on  the 
farm,'  she  sobbed.  .  .  .  '  They  grow 
thick  there  in  our  fields.  I  often 
gathered  them  when  out  there  walk- 
ing with  Dad.  Yours  put  me  in 
mind  of  the  old  home  and — him.' 

"  '  And  your  ma,'  I  added. 

"  '  She's  dead,'  says  Jule. 

" '  I  'laven't  seen  Dad,  and  the 
farm  und  the  buttercups  for  two 
years.' 

" '  You  ought  to  run  home  and 
make  them  a  visit,'  I  says,  still  not 
looking  at  her. 

" '  I'm  not  fit,'  she  gasped,  '  not  fit 
to  go  under  Dad's  roof.  I'm  his 
only  child,  and  I  disgraced  him.' 


HE  GARDEN'S  MESSAGE     47 


She  was  crying  bitterly  now, 
shaking  all  over,  and  I  put  my  arm 
around  her,  and  right  then  and  there 
began  to  paint  a  picture.  In  the 
foreground,  as  artists  would  say  (I 
boarded  one  a  summer  and  learned 

how  they  talk),  I  put  a  poor  old  dad 
whose  eyes  were  growing  dimmer 
and  dimmer  with  unshed  tears  look- 
ing at  the  buttercups  and  wondering 
where  in  the  wide  world  his  little 
girl  was.    Then  I  painted  the  still- 
ness  and  lonesomeness  of  the  house 
when    he'd  come  home  at  nights 
And    how  he'd    think  of   his  girl 
the    last   thing  before  he  went  to 
sleep,  and  the  first  thing  ,vhen  he'd 
wake  in  the  mornings.    He  had  for- 
gotten all  the  wrong  she  had  done 
in    the   great    hunger    he    had    to 
see  her. 


48 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


"Jule  trembled  all  through  her 
when  I  was  touching  my  brush  on 
that  part. 

"  How  her  vacant  place  at  the 
table  would  be  like  a  stab  in  his 
heart  three  times  each  day. 

"Then  I  painted  the  old  dog 
around  the  farm  looking  lonesome 
too ;  and  the  flower-garden  and  all 
the  little  singing  birds  that  come 
back  every  Spring,  with  their  neigh- 
bourly ways  building  their  nests  in 
the  apple-trees  and  in  the  corners  of 
the  very  porch.  One  pair  of  robins 
I  made  come  back  to  the  same  old 
nest  year  after  year.  Then  I  put  in 
the  soft  green  fields,  dotted  here  and 
there  with  buttercups  and  daisies, 
and  the  lambs  gambolled  and  played 
out  there ;  the  grave  sedate  cows 
with  their  big  soft  eyes,  and  the  kind 


the   picture    she    f^  ^^'^  ^^'^^ed 

^     "'"    sne    says,  '  i'^    „  ■ 
home ;    I'll  „.„,, ,     -^  '     ^  '^  going 
^"  start  to-n,ght/' 
ishe  went  off  on   that  »       • 

h- star,  and  ;::i';;^;!°r°^^^ 

°fthebuttercup;rK7^'"^^P<'«3^ 
P^«t    out    of  the  '         "'"'^^'  *° 
plants,  Just  to  tep  :  "'   ''™^- 
^«sh  inhern.-  r^    ^  °^*^   ^a™ 
home.        '""''^'^"°"^«he  reached 

"I    beh-eve,"  added    Mrs    SI.^ 
after  remaining  silpnf      7      ^'^^' 
^"1  for  a  W  ^"^  thought- 

^or  a  few  moments  "tha*  t 
'aore  real  pleasure  /^a*  I  got 

P-tureof'hn/r"^"P*h«t 

.^-Mhing,a„rthTti*'^^"^ 
'°gand  waiting  th''''"^^*«h- 

'"^'  t*^^"  any  piece  of 


50         THE  FILLAGE  ARTIST 

work  I  ever  did.    I'm  most  ashamed 
to  tell  you  how  I  acted  on  the  road 
home  from  the  station  after  seeing 
Jule  off.     I  could  have  jumped  for 
joy — I  most  believe  I  did — I  was 
young  then.     With  my  head  up  in 
the  air  I  walked  along  singing— 
that  part  of  the  village  was  then  just 
like  a  country  road — and  if  you'll 
believe  me,  a  bit  of   a  song  bird 
struck  up  and  helped  me  as  if  his 
heart    too  was    bursting  with  joy. 
'  Little    bird   what    do    you    know 
about  the  joy  of  helping  any  per- 
son ? '  I  says — my  heart  was  that  full 
I  wanted  to  talk  out  to  everything 
— but  the  saucy  fellow  sang  all  the 
louder  as  if  he  really  had  a  share  in 
it.    I  stooped  down  and  snatched  up 
a  handful  of  buttercups  growing  by 
the  wayside  and  kissed  them.     I  was 


al^o^  crazy  with  happiness  that  it 
h»d  been  given  me  to  paint  the  pic- 
ture  that  was  to  work  on  poor  June's 
heart,  and  send  her  home  to  '  Dad  ' " 


IV 

THE  NEIGHBOURS 


"  The  degenenio^  of  art  baa  Mwaya  been  charac- 
terized bj  a  tnnnDg  away  from  the  iuviaible  and  a 
bowing  down  to  the  visible." 

UT  Satan  meddled 
with  even  the  Gar- 
den of  Eden,  how 
could  I  expect  he'd 
stay  away  from  my 
garden  1 "  continued  Mrs.  Slade,  as  if 
there  had  not  been  an  interval  of 
some  days  between  her  last  talk  and 
the  present.  "  After  awhile  my  two 
neighbours,  the  one  on  my  right,  and 
the  one  on  my  left  (they're  both 
dead  and  gone  now,  poor  things), 
seemed  to  grow  jealous  of  my  gar- 
den. 


Barn  J  "t'  ®'™"'  ^'^'^«''  ^^'^  M"- 
Barney    «he  kne^v  me  from  a  little 

«;r    and  made  free  to  call  me  63!  m, 
first   name-a-wastin'    most   of  h 
"-    -kin.  a  p.,,  „7    r    r':: 
yard;  fit  her  better  to  be  in  the  hoi 
Patch.n-aquilt,orbraidin'adoo 

oelongs  to  a  woman." 
"This  hurt  me  some  for  IVe  no 

h:dt;t"rr--^-cie: 
w:^d:irei;r-"-^- 

s>de  whispered  it  'round  that  I  was 
Cr^;"^'--'-^«Wtheman 

oulV*  r/"*«^^" -son  that  l' 
r  j  '^'"'^  «°  «"ch  time  in  the 
^  -'  --  -perl,  to  :; 


54 


THE  FILL  AGE  ARTIST 


"  This  made  me  shed  a  few  tears  ; 
I  kept  in  as  long  us  I  could,  but  one 
day  I  burst  out  and  told  it  all  to 
Simon  and  asked  him  if  I  was  starv- 
ing him.  First  Simon  laughed,  and 
then  when  he  saw  the  tears  in  my 
eyes  he  put  his  arm  around  me — we 
were  young  then— and  he  says- 
kind  of  joking-like  : 

"  '  Man  '  does  not  live  by  bread 
alone.  I  never  look  at  that  garden 
of  yours,'  he  says,  '  without  saying 
over  to  myself,  "  The  wilderness  and 
the  solitary  place  shall  be  glad  for 
Serena,  and  the  desert  shall  rejoice 
and  blossom  as  the  rose."  ' 

"  I  thought  it  wicked  for  Simon  to 
wrest  Scripture  in  that  way,  and  I 
told  him  so. 

"  But  after  that  I  laughed  in  my 
neighbours'  faces  ;  what  cared  I  for 


'i^rn*. 


PJe-ed,    This  went  on  for  a  welk 

'hen  something  seeniecl  to  say  Jr^e' 
very   soft  and    W,  .p,i„/„;7;j 

^oodpo.nt.of,ourtwoneigI,C' 
fairly  gasped   for  breath.    I 

fcnew   hat  was  the  very  hardest  kind 
of  picture  I  could  tackle,  too  hard  I 

^ut  I  could  not  get  the  idea  out  of 
2°"nd,andthatverydayIgot 

mem  my  garden  she  says  with  »n 
important  air:  -^^  with  an 

'"How  can  you  waste  your  time 

Serena   over  flowers  ?a-foolin'w"h 
'hose  wild  flowers, 'she  says  ...you;' 


56 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


get  poisoned  with  poison  ivy,  and 
Simon  will  have  a  doctor's  bill  to  pay 
next,'  she  says. 

"  I  didn't  try  to  answer  her — 
'twould  mar  my  picture ;  I  just 
walked  into  the  house  and  thought 
and  thought  about  Mrs.  Barney.  I 
remembered  that  she  had  a  heap  of 
trouble  ;  she  had  told  me  about  bury- 
ing her  little  baby,  and  that  she 
never  could  bear  to  part  with  the 
little  dresses.  And  she  had  told  me 
that  one  time  her  man  had  typhoid 
fever,  and  she  never  had  her  clothes 
off  nights  for  six  weeks,  sitting  up 
giving  him  medicine  and  baths. 
And  I  knew,  although  she  did  not 
tell  me,  that  sometimes  he  drank  and 
acted  ugly  at  home.  While  I  sat 
there  studying  I  seemed  to  see  her  as 
one  of  the  sweetest,  patientest  crea- 


her     sweeter    and    lovelier    every 
--"te.    I  eould   not  n.ake  Zll 

Wy  exactly,  or  do  n.ueh  with  the 
features  of  her  face  which  were  un 

T""'^  P^-.  30  I  pai„ted\: 
having  a  beautiful  soul.     And  if  j 

"Then  Simon  came  home  to  sun- 

iZ   '"'"'^•""'^'"''^^ 

.""-"'S"'"?  to  .lop  me. 


S8 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


any  one  could  see  that  at  a  glance ; 
her  face  and  the  features  of  it  were 
well  shaped,  and  I  painted  away 
until  I  made  that  pretty  mouth  of 
hers  not  so  thin- lipped  and  down 
at  the  corners.  I  knew  it  was  like 
that  when  she  was  happy.  Her 
eyes  were  brown  and  big,  and  I 
painted  alj  the  hard  glassy  look  out 
of  them  and  made  them  just  as 
soft  and  mellow  as  when  she  was 
a  girl  talking  to  her  best  beau. 
Then  I  struck  all  the  ugly  sarcastic 
wrinkles  out  from  her  face,  and 
took  off  the  scowl  between  her  eyes. 
Some  wrinkles  to  my  mind  are 
pretty,  laughing  wrinkles  at  the 
sides  of  the  mouth,  and  sweet,  kind 
wrinkles  around  the  eyes.  I  left 
them.  Then  her  nose  which  had 
grown  to  a  pretty  considerable  point, 


"°««' and  I  p,i„,3^       2^  Greek 

^- finished  an;l:C;"^'-^"^Pic- 
with  my  mind'«  ,     ^'"^  't  °ver 

''e  her  neighbour  i     T  ^'"^  *° 
-«P-forLl;er%""^'*'"« 

°°t  make  prominent  r  '^"^ 

blemishes,  he  iust  n  ''''*'  ""^ 

^bo".h  tbe/::r:r;b-b,a3 

-c^esfor^hepreu^t^r-^ 

^--andiookt^ittrr-^^ 

^'^--e ^herheLa^i:'^?:- 


6o  THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


didn't  seem  to  make  any  difference, 
she  still  looked  lovely  to  me.  '  That 
toss  of  the  head  is  only  a  wart,'  I 
says, '  it  isn't  the  real  Mrs.  Green.' 

"  By  the  time  I  had  finished  my 
paintings  I  loved  those  two  women 
so  well  I  wanted  to  do  something  for 
them.  I  couldn't  think  of  anything 
good  enough  scarcely  until  the 
thought  flashed  into  my  mind, 
'  Take  them  each  a  bunch  of  your 
flowers.' 

"  With  this  I  went  out  and  picked 
a  cluster  of  buttercups,  soft  little 
yellow  things  with  green  hearts  in 
them,  and  in  among  them  I  mixed 
some  of  those  starry  sprays  of  wild 
clematis,  and  round  the  whole  I  put 
some  of  my  very  finest  ferns,  and 
you've  no  idea  how  feathery  and 
elegant  that  bouquet  looked.     Then 


'.f^iTP^ 


-^    -ene    over    tTM^^'"^^^-' 
"^f  ^ng  my  flowers  ^"'"'^^^'^ 

'"They're    to    ni,f 
;«^^«'  Mrs.  BarneJ^^^^  °"  ^°"'-  *«^- 
^er  Che  of  the  hn        '^•^'''  landing 

r^-^-^e/hlXr^"^^' 
sweet-.  You're  Tl     ''""'"  ^"'^Jis 

'^^-««es  there-ri^'    ''^^  ^°^^'-  are 
"Then  r  """'^^e.' 

^-c^rrr^'^-^-ehto 

P^'-^^.  «nd  when  T  r'"""^ ''^  *h« 
^°^«^«sheJooteVj>     ?'^^^*he 

^^ind  of  ,r     i'^"^^«^asshot 

"^^■«P-.  'puts'  t  T  ''""^  ^'^  « 
™^  "1  ™,nd  of  the 


X^^t^K^'Ttf' 


6a         THE  FILL  AGE  ARTIST 


flowers  that  grow  in  the  bush  to 
home.'  I  believe  if  I'd  have  stayed 
there  three  minutes  longer  Mrs. 
Green  would  have  burst  right  out 
a-crying. 

"  Well  the  upshot  of  it  was,  by 
the  next  spring  Mrs.  Barney  and 
Mrs.  Green  wanted  to  fix  up  their 
front  yards,  and  I  was  over  helping 
them,  turn  about. 

"And  when  we  got  these  yards 
done,  it  seemed  as  if  the  fever  had 
grown  on  us  to  beautify  everything, 
and  we  turned  our  attention  out  to 
the  street  in  front  of  our  homes. 
The  vacant  lot  opposite  us,  where 
the  widow  McShane  always  pastured 
her  cow— as  long  as  there  was  any 
grass    therfr-had    an    old    rickety 
fence    around    it,    and    we    three 
women,    all    armed     with    spades. 


m.'XMSMl 


I^iff^GffSOU^^ 


'^«    -th    here  ? /"^^^^^^ 
'^«'    old  fence    /'    ^^^'«    "^ong 

— cl    ,,eh    1';.  °^'  ^^'^^  waa 

*^-"^h  the  vSai    r'  *'"^  «^^ 

'^"""^  "nsightr/"''"*-  ^"°«« 
^'«"«e  W  been  h  "^  ''  ^^«^«  a 
-^  years  bete  :?''''-"  3^-3 

'^at  sumjner     Th      >        ^°^er-bed 
«o-er  seed  seeded' to  f^  "^  ^^^"* 
^««"Po^    amor  1      "^'  '^^^  *he 
scattering    seeds. 


64  THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


Some  seed  fell  by  the  wayside,  and 
some  on  stony  ground,  and  some 
fell  among  thorns,  and  other  fell 
into  good  ground,  but,  unlike  the 
seed  of  Scripture,  they  all  grew  and 
flourished.  And  that  is  how  ours  is 
the  prettiest  village  in  the  Prov- 
ince." 


t 


*•»*<•  new  hone,  T  '  """"e'er  the  !»„.  , 

pLL."saidMrs.SIade 
""'^  day  as  we  sat 
''^g^therin  her 
grape-vfne    arbour 

Leith?  ^"*  P'^nt'ng  up  P  n 

»>^"^%'^TaZtXr-*'^-a 

P'«e   fo,  ^,,.    "  ^''^«g«  '«  a  great 
^"-ng^^up  reports^so  J 


3BL_  -^ 


66 


THE  VILLAGF.  ARTl&T 


made  up  n.y  mind  to  see  what  I 
could  do  at  painting  him  up  so's  he 
could  respect  himself.  For  I  hold  if 
one  respects  himself  it  doesn't  matter 
so  much  whether  other  people  re- 
spect him  or  not. 

"  He  had  a  pipe  that  he  occasion- 
ally smoked,  and  'twas  said  he  soaked 
that  white  clay  pipe  in  tobacco  juice 
to  make  it  look  like  he  was  an  old 
smoker.  He  hung  around  the  post- 
office  every  night  until  the  lights 
were  put  out,  and  when  that  was 
closed  you  could  generally  find  him 
with  a  number  of  other  boys  propped 
against  a  board  fence  which  was 
decorated  with  huge  circus  posters. 
He  could  be  found  every  Sunday 
night  with  the  group  of  loungers 
who  stood  around  the  church  door 
passing  remarks  on  the  congregation, 


''PAINTING  UP  BEN  LEITH" 


^1 


certain  members  of  it,  .is  they  came 
out— he  sat  in  one  of  the  back  seats 
so  he  could  get  out  of  the  church  be- 
fore the  others.     He  wore  his  hat  on 
the  back  of  his  head,  tipped  over  to- 
wards the  left  ear,  and  tried  to  look 
as  hang-dog  as  a  boy  of  his  age  well 
could;    but    somehow,   'way  down, 
back    in,   I  always  saw  something 
good  about  Ben.     And  I  believe  the 
poorest  soul  has  a  saving  remnant  in 
him,  if  we  only  look  sharp  enough 
to  find  it. 

"I  watched  for  a  chance,  and  one 
day  I  met  Ben,  and  I  says,  •  Why 
Ben  Leith,  how  tall  you're  growing  I 
getting  to  be  quite  a  gentleman,  eh  ? 
Curious,'  I  says,  'how  it  comes 
natural  to  boys  as  they  grow  taller 
and  handsomer,  to  act  the  man,  and 
take  on  gentlemanlike  ways.' 


68 


THE  1^ ILL  AGE  ARTIST 


"  Ben  looked  foolish,  bfp;aii  to  paw 
the  ground  with  his  big  brown  boot, 
and  muttered,  '  I  guesa  I  ain't  much 
on  the  gentleman.' 

"  But  I  stopped  him,  and  I  says, 
'Haven't  I  the  sight  of  my  eyes, 
Ben?  Don't  you  think  I  know  a 
gentleman  when  I  see  one,  even  if 
he  is  not  much  more  than  a  boy?  I 
can  see  the  good  look  in  even  a  boy's 
face  the  moment  I  set  eyes  on  him, 
and  there's  no  use  in  his  denying  it. 
If  I  see  it  I  won't  believe  him  before 
I  believe  the  sight  of  my  own  eyes,' 
I  says. 

"Ben  laughed  sheepishly,  and 
twisted  a  button  on  his  coat  until  I 
thought  he'd  have  it  off.  But  he 
got  away  from  me  as  soon  as  he 
could. 

"  This  was  all  the  painting  I  did 


^PJ/UT/NG  UP  B£N  LEITH"    69 

that  time,  but  his  mother  told  me 
that  Ben  went  home  that  evening 
and  blacked  his  boots  and  conji.od 
his  hair  before  he  came  to  tho  t-a- 
table. 

"Soon  after  that  I  weni.  ^t,  und 
one  night  and  called  on  Ben',  moth','- 
when  I  knew  Ben  was  in  the  hcu.^e 
I  had  got  interested  in  that  pietuio 
and  liked  working  on  it. 

"Ben  did  not  run  away  as  he 
sometimes  did  before.  I  suspect  the 
little  painting  I  had  done  pleased 
him  and  he  wanted  to  see  me  do 
more. 

"I  talked  on  with  his  mother  a 
spell,  and  before  I  left  the  house  I 
says,  turning  to  him,  '  Ben  I've  a 
book  I  know  you'd  like  well  to  read. 
Your  brow  is  growing  so  large  and 
high,  I  know  brains  are  growing  in 


70  THE  y ILL  AGE  ARTIST 


there.      And  good  clear  eyes  gener- 
ally mean  brains  behind  them  too.' 

"Ben's  eyes  took  on  a  new  clear- 
ness. 

" '  It's  a  very  interesting  story,'  I 
says.  '  I  thought  when  I  was  read- 
ing the  book  that  you'd  like  it,  and 
I'm  just  going  to  send  it  over  to  you. 
I  like  to  lend  books  to  people  that 
can  appreciate  them.' 

"Ben  shuffled  in  his  seat,  and 
said, '  I'm  not  much  on  readin'.' 

"But  I  says,  'Now,  Ben,  you're 
just  underrating  yourself.  I  know 
you  have  it  in  you ;  don't  be  too 
modest  to  own  to  it.' 

"That  night  I  sent  him  two  of 
the  most  interesting  story-books  I 
could  find,  about  boys,  and  great 
adventures  with  wild  beasts  and 
snakes.     When   he  had   read  them 


'^  PAINTING  UP  B£N  LEITH"     7, 

he  brought  them  back,  and  asked 
whether  I  had  any  more  of  the 
same  kind  to  lend. 

" '  Ben  Leith,'  I  says, '  you  seem  to 
have  the  brains  of  the  village  !  I'll 
lend  you  more  books,  of  course  I 
will.  It  isn't  every  boy  that  cares 
for  good  reading.' 

"Then  I  lent  him  more,  and  he 
kept  coming,  and  I  kept  lending. 

"It  was  said  that  when  Jule 
Dohflrty  was  here  in  the  village 
Ben  would  wink  at  her  if  he  could 
catch  her  eye.  But  I  wasn't  sup- 
posed to  read  Ben's  heart,  or  know 
the  meaning  of  his  winks,  so  I  says, 
when  he  came  to  return  the  books  I 
had  lent  him : 

"'I  heard,  Ben,  that  you  were 
the  only  one  in  the  village  that 
paid  any  attention  to  poor  lonesome 


7»  THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


Jule  Doherty.     The  little  girl  has  no 
mother,'  I  says  ;  '  and  is  only  seven- 
teen, and  any  one  that  said  a  kind 
word    to   her  or  did   a   kind   deed 
for  her  deserves  praise.     She's  gone 
home   now,  and  we  may  never  see 
her  pretty    face  again,    but   it   was 
very     nice     in    you    if    you    were 
thoughtful  away  ahead  of  the  rest 
of  us.     You   kept  up  the  credit  of 
the  village  if  you  did  that,'  I  .says, 
'and   put   to  shame  the  rest  of  us. 
I'm   afraid   a  great  many  of  us  are 
priests   and   Levitt's,'  I   says,  'pass- 
ing by  on  the  other  side,  hurrying 
after  our    own   concerns,    what   we 
think  important ;  it's  only  here  and 
there,   one    in   a   hundred    perhaps, 
that's   the  good  Samaritan,     (jreat, 
isn't    it,    Ben,   if   you've    been   the 
good  Samaritan  of  the  village?  ' 


MMIil 


'PANTING  UP  BEN  LEITH' 


73 


"  Ben  blushed  a  dull  heavy  red. 
"But    I   went    on    not   noticing. 
'  Every  little   village  and  town  has 
its   few  good  people,  and  I  like  to 
think  our  village  i.s  not  behind  any 
of  them   in— sand.     I've  heard  the 
boys  use  that  word,'  I  says,  '  and  I 
suppose  they  mean  pretty  much  the 
same   by   it  as  the  Rible  means  by 
s^ll.     I  think  it's  Matthew,'  I  says, 
'speaks  about   certain  pt^ple  l,eing 
the  salt  ot  ihf  earth.' 

"Ben  'loktd  most  as  if  he  could 
sink  into  iJie  ground,  or  cry. 

"Another  •\',.nin.tr  I  hand.^4  him 
•  nice  lit'le  !ov.-*t/,ry,  .,nd  I  ggyg, 
'This  i«  a  J<,ve-«t/^y.  Ben.'  He 
act«d  a,«  if  he  did  ,^/,  k«/,w 
whether  to  take  it  „t  not.  ■  «f>me- 
whw«  in  this  world,  J  ^y.«,  ■  there'* 
a  littk-  girl    ,T,ur<>  ^oinjc  ,<ome  day 


74 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


to  ask  to  be  your  wife,  and  it  won't 
do  you  any  harm  to  learn  how  it  is 
done.' 

"  It  wu  dusk— I  choee  that  time 
a-purpose  to  have  my  little  talk — 
and  I  could  not  see  whether  Ben  got 
red  in  the  face  or  not.  But  I  think 
he  did,  for  he  stammered  out  quick, 
'  I'm  never  goin'  to  get  married.' 

"  I  went  right  on,  and  I  says, 
'Be  sure  and  get  one  just  as  nice 
as  yourself,  Ben.' 

"  He  seemed  to  forget  that  he  said 
he  was  never  going  to  be  married, 
for  says  he,  quick-like,  '  I  want  one 
a  heap  nicer  than  myself 

'"I  wouldn't  let  myself  fall  in 
love  with  a  girl  that  drank,'  I  says. 

"  Ben  turned  quick  and  looked  at 
me. 

" '  It  would  spoil  the  sweetness  of 


"  PAINTING  UP  BEN  LEITH"     75 

her  breath.  Then  she  might  get  to 
like  it,  and  turn  out  a  drunkard. 
That  would  he  terrible,'  I  says. 

"  '  Nor  I  don't  believe  Id  let  my- 
self   love     one     that    smoked.     It 
wouldn't  be  a  very  nice  habit  to  prac- 
tice   around    the    house— not    very 
clean.     The  .smoke  would  darken  up 
the  white  lace  window  curtains  ter- 
ribly, and  the  tobacco  would  colour 
her  teeth,  and  make  her  mouth  not 
so  sweet  and  pretty  to  kiss.     Take 
the  red  out  of  her  lips  and  cheeks, 
and  make  them  blue,'  I  say=. 

"  '  Nor  one  that  was  fast,  and  said 
had  words,'  I  «ays.  'A  woman 
should  be  as  good  at  least  as  the  man 
she  marries.  When  you're  good 
yourself,  Ben,  expect  good  in  the  girl 
you  give  your  heart  to.' 

Hvery  one  expects  women  to  be 


76 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


better  than  men,'  said  Hen,  with  the 
softest  tone  I  ever  hunid  in  hiH  voice. 
"  '  Well,'  I  says,  '  a  good  boy  ought 
to  get  a  girl  as  good  as  himself. 
When  you  are  keeping  yourself  nice 
and  good  for  her,  Ben,  she  ouglit  to 
be  keeping  herself  nice  and  good  for 
you. 

"  '  A  sweet  pretty  little  creature  I 
have  no  doubt  she'll  be,' I  says.  'I'm 
sure  you'll  be  proud  of  her,  and  of 
course  she'll  be  real  proud  of  you.' 

"'Pshaw!'  ,say.s  Ben.  jerking  his 
head  to  one  side.  But  I  saw,  even  in 
the  dark,  that  his  eyes  were  ai:  a-shine 
looking  at  the  picture  I  was  painting 
of  his  happy  future. 

"  The  next  time  I  ,«aw  him,  I  says, 
'  You've  been  practicing  up — what 
they  call  training,  or  physical  cul- 
ture ? ' 


'PJINTING  UP  BEN  LEITH' 


77 

"  '  No,'  says  Ben, '  I  ain't  been  doin' 
anythin'.' 

" '  Well,'  I  says,  '  what's  broaden- 
ing and  straightening  those  shoulders 
of  yours?  My,  but  you'll  be  want- 
ing to  sport  a  cane  and  silk  hat 
next ! ' 

"  Ben  wriggled  his  shoulders,  braced 
them  back  a  bit,  and  walked  on. 

"  '  I  don't  know  what's  come  over 
my  Ben,'  said  Mrs.  Leith,  one  after- 
noon I  was  at  her  house  helping  her 
with  an  apple-paring.  'The  other 
day  I  saw  him  put  his  old  brown 
pipe,  he's  been  tryin'  hard,  in  spite 
of  all  I  could  say,  to  smoke,  down  on 
a  stone  in  the  back  yard,  and  smash 
It  with  another  stone.  Then  I 
watched  him  when  he  did  not  know 
it,  and  he  was  standing  before  the 
looking-glass  straightening  back  his 


78 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


shoulders,  and  exercising  so  as  to 
keep  them  straight — I  have  always 
been  afraid  Ben  would  be  round- 
shouldered,  he  lot  himself  lop  down 
so.  And  he's  got  ..^  particular,  must 
wear  a  collar  W'\  L-days,  brushes  his 
clothes;  and  once  I  saw  him  prac- 
ticing with  a  stick  out  of  a  window 
blind,  to  see  whether  he  could  man- 
age to  walk  with  a  cane.' 

"'But  aren't  you  deceivin'  the 
boy,  Serena  ? '  says  Simon  to  me  one 
day — he  was  the  only  one  who  knew 
what  I  was  working  on—'  you  don't 
see  anything  as  nice  in  him  as  you're 
paintin'  ? ' 

"  '  Simon,'  I  says, '  the  divine  image 
is  somewhere  in  that  boy,  and  I'm 
training  my  eye  to  see  it.'  " 


VI 


THE  CHURCH  PICTURE 
GALLERT 

ES,"  said  Mrs.  Slade, 
"  you    admire    our 
church,     and     I'm 
glad   you   do;    it's 
the    oldest   church 
in  the  village,  and  I  always  hold  that 
old  things  and  old  people  ought  to 
h*ve  more  value  to  them  than  the 
new  and  the  young.      I  have  often 
swd  to  Simon  that  I  had  no  patience 
»-ith  people  excusing  themselves  for 
8hort«)mings  because  they  were  old 
(nnlesB  they  had  fallen  into  second 
childhood  I,  that  was  only  a  reason 
79 


8o 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


why  more  should  bo  expected  of  them. 
Hadn't  they  all  the  years  in  which  to 
add  to  their  faith  virtue  ;  and  virtue 
knowledge  ;  and  to  knowledge  tem- 
perance, patience.godliness,  brotherly 
kindness  and  love.  The  poor  young 
things  have  all  these  yet  before  them 
to  learn  in  the  years  to  come,  some 
of  them  in  a  hard  school,  but  the  old 
ought  to  Icnow  the  lessons. 

"  Yes,  I'll  acknowledge  that  I  did 
do  a  considerable  towards  beautifying 
the  outside  of  the  old  church.  It  is 
built  as  you  s  le  of  stone.  I  reckon 
there  wasn't  any  brick  made  'round 
these  parts  when  that  church  was 
built.  It  had  stood  out  for  many 
years  in  the  bleaching  sun  without  a 
tree  'round  it,  and  had  become  quite 
gray  and  faded  looking. 

"  Well,  first  1  «,ot  several  roots  of 


CHURCH  PICTURE  GALLERY  8i 

ivy  and  planted  them  up  against  the 
ohi  church.  That  ivy  grew  and 
grew,  creeping  liere  and  creeping 
there,  spreading  its  soft  green  wings, 
seeming  to  mother  the  old  stones 
and  cover  up  all  their  defects. 

"  Next  I  persuaded  a  young  farmer 
who  attended  the  church  to  bring  in 
some   nice  young  oak  trees,  and  1 
helped    him    plant  them  (held   the 
trees    straight    while    he   shovelled 
in  the  earth)  just  where  I  wanted 
them.     'The    oak,'    I    says   to   the 
farmer,  '  is  a  proper  church  tree,  an 
example  of  what  a  Christian  should 
be— growing  stronger  with  the  years  ; 
minding     little     the    most    furious 
storms ;  a  blessing  to  every  one  who 
looks    at    it    or    comes    under    its 
shadow.' 

"  I  have  never  seen  a  heathen  tern- 


MiaoCOfY  nSOlUTION   TiST  CHAIT 

(ANSi  ond  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


12.8 

1 3.4 


1.8 


^IU4I^ 


A  >^PPLIED  IIVHGE    In 

^— '^  1653  Eost   Main   Str«et 

S'.a  HochesUr.   New  Yortc         14609       USA 

■^=  (716)   *e2  -  0300  -  Phon. 

^K  (^'C)  288  -  S9S9  -  Fa> 


82 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


pie,  but  they  tell  me  that  they  are 
always  set  in  pretty  groves  of  trees, 
and  made  as  inviting  looking  as  pos- 
sible, and  I  did  not  calculate  that 
our  village  church  should  remain 
any  longer  bare  and  unattractive 
looking — even  to  those  who  had 
never  opened  the  eyes  of  their  spirits 
to  see  its  real  beauty. 

"  I  planted  in  the  shady  corners 
great  clumps  of  fern — dug  them  up 
myself  in  the  bush, — maidenhair 
and  adder's  tongue,  wood  fern  and 
chain  fern. 

"  Even  the  farmers  of  the  congre- 
gation, who  had  been  looking  at 
ferns  all  their  lives,  said  that  they 
never  saw  their  beauty  until  it  was 
shown  up  against  that  old  gray 
church. 

"  Between  us  all  (by  this  time  sev- 


CHURCH  PICTURE  GALLERY  8.^ 

eral  other  women  were  interested) 
we  made  our  church  look  as  pretty 
and  inviting-looking  as  any  heathen 
temple  that  ever  was  built. 

"  But  the  inside  of  the  church— 
we  never  dared  to  meddle  with  tlint. 
I  suppose  to  strangers  it  looks  very 
plain,  with  its  square  pews  and  high 
narrow  pulpit,  but  to  us  it  is  richly 
decorated  with  memories.     Some  of 
the  younger  people  proposed  at  one 
time  to  introduce  modern  furniture, 
to  change  the  square  pews  and  high 
narrow  pulpit ;  but  we  older  people 
who  could  see  with  the  heart's  eye  so 
many    pictures   in    the  old   church 
could   not   bear  to   have  an  article 
changed. 

"  There  is  the  old  pulpit  in  which 
have  stood  many  preachers— (/oo<Z 
men  ;  all  of  them,  I  believe,  with  the 


84 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


Name  spoken  about  in  IJuvelations 
written  in  their  foreheads,  but  some 
of  them  a  terrible  weariness  of  the 
flesh  to  listen  to.  The  dear  slow  old 
man  who  never  could  stop  short  of  an 
hour  ;  and  the  sprightly  young  fellow 
who  hadn't  enough  dejHh  for  you  to 
sink  a  bucket  and  draw  it  up  full,  if 
you  know  what  I  mean  by  that. 
Poor  young  preachers,  my  heart  often 
ached  for  them  when  I  thought  how 
painful  the  deepening  process  might 
be.  At  times  there  came  the  man 
with  such  a  great  message  from  God 
that  he  made  us  forget  time,  and 
everything  else  but  a  sense  of  the  In- 
finite; and  we  went  out  from  that 
old  church  feeling  it  was  possible  to 
live  the  life  of  love,  and  joy,  and 
peace. 

"  In  front  of  the  altar  have  stood 


CHURCH  PICTURE  GALLERr  85 

the  bridos  in  tlieir  robcvs  of  white 
•stepping,  will,  a  sort  of  holy  joy' 
over  the  thresliold  of  a  new  life,  'on 
the  same  spot  too  have  rested  the 
coffins  of  those  who  had  already  en- 
tered the  neu-  life  on  the  Other  Side 
That  picture  of  the  coffins,  the  long 
black  coffins,  the  folded  hands  within 
seamed    and    work-worn,    and    the 

short  white  coffins,  where  the  waxen 
baby  fingers  knew  naught  of  earth's 
conflict,  stands  out  sharply  for  most 
of  us. 

"In  the  front  sea- the  old  people 
who    were   hard    01    nearing    could 
always  be  found.     Any  time  I  can 
shut   my   eyes  and   see   the  snowv 
ocks  and   the  spectacled   eyes,  the 
bent  shoulders   and    the   trembling 
l'and.s,  but  withal  the  rapturous  look- 
as  If  they  were  ready  at  any  moment 


86 


THE  FILL  AGE  ARTIST 


to  take  the  wings  that  deatn  brings 
and  fly  away. 

"  A  little  farther  back  have  been 
seated  the  middle-aged  people,  grave 
and  sedate,  while  their  sons  and 
daughters  around  them  were  glanc- 
ing shyly  at  each  other.  I  can  yet 
at  any  moment  see  Donald  Grant 
looking  at  Mamie  Phraser  who  sat 
across  at  an  angle  from  him.  Don- 
ald looked  at  her,  I  believe,  all  the 
time  except  during  prayers,  and  I 
would  not  be  sure  he  did  not  take 
sly  glances  then.  She,  the  little 
puss,  never  oroe  glanced  his  way, 
and  tried  to  look  unconscious ;  but  I 
could  tell  fine  by  the  colour  that  came 
and  went  in  her  apple-blossom  cheek, 
that  she  knew  well  Donald  was  look- 
ing at  her.  'Twas  in  that  church 
that  Simon  and  I  first  laid  eyes  on 


CHURCH  PICTURE  GALLERY  87 

each  other,  and  knew  at  a  glance, 
Simon  says,  that  we  were  intended 
for  each  other.  Nice  place,  isn't  it, 
for  the  introduction  of  souls  ? 

"  The  truth  is  the  old  church  is  a 
picture-gallery,  full  of  every  kind  of 
picture  which  would  be  admitted 
into  any  respectable  gallery,  and  each 
one  of  us  carries  away  in  our  memory 
the  pictures  that  hit  us  hardest. 

"I  haven't  a  doubt  that  the  picture 
which  stands  out  strongest  in  Mrs. 
Thompson's  mind  is  that  of  her  little 
baby   boy   in   the   minister's  arms; 
when    the    good    man    called   him 
'  Joshua  Peter '  and  put  a  large  hand- 
ful  of  water  on  his  round  uncon- 
scious   head.     Little    Joshua    Pet.^r 
when  he  felt  the  cold  water,  set  up  a 
terrible  roar  that  frightened  us  all, 
and  fought  the  minister's  hand  with 


88 


THE  ULLAGE  yfRT/ST 


his  little  pink  lists.  1  reckon  ho 
showed  his  fighting  nature  right  at 
the  start.  He's  a  man  grown  now — 
down  in  South  Africa  among  the 
mounted  police. 

"  Then  there  was  little  William 
Shakespeare,  a  baby  that  was  picked 
up  on  the  country  road,  and  the 
county  paid  the  widow  McNair  to 
'tend  him  and  bring  him  up.  The 
widow  was  determined  to  start  right, 
so  she  gave  him  a  good  name,  and 
brought  him  to  the  church  to  be 
baptized.  I  remembered  all  of  us 
who  looked  on  thought  it  was  a  use- 
less undertaking,  considering  the 
bad  stock  we  suspected  1  lat  boy  had 
sprung  from.  But  I've  lived  long 
enough  to  believe  in  whoever  it  was 
that  said,  '  Every  one  is  born  nearer 
to  God  than  to  any  ancestor,'  for  that 


CHURCH  PICTURE  GALLERY   89 

boy  has  grown  up  as  good  aiul  re- 
spectable a  young  man  as  you'd  want 
to  see. 

"  But  to  return  to  the  seats  ;  I  can 
find  any  number  of  pictures  among 
them.     In  the  riglit-hand  corner  was 
the  seat  of  JIary  Bryler,  where  she 
sat  all    one    winter    every   Sunday 
morning,  with  her  great  dark  eyes 
directed  towards  the  minister,  but  I 
knew  from  the  shadows  which  lay  in 
them,  that  all  the  time  tliey  were  off 
in  a  distant  land  looking  at  the  man 
she  once  thought  loved  her  with  an- 
other woman  by  his  side.     TL  3  silent 
soul  tragedies,  that  Lleed  the  heart 
and  blanch  the  cheek,  if  we  could 
only  see  them  we  might  paint  pic- 
tures   enough    to   hang    'round   the 
world!      Mary    understands    it    all 
now ;  she  has  gone  on  to  that  coun- 


90 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


try  where  they  shall  hunger  no  more, 
not  even  for  love.  I  reckon  a  num- 
ber of  us  must  go  on  there  before 
many  of  the  happenings  of  this  life 
are  made  plain  to  us. 

"  There's  one  corner  into  which  I 
cannot  allow  my  mind's  eye  to 
wander  without  seeing  Myra  Simp- 
kins,  a  slip  of  a  girl  who  laughed 
at  everything  that  happened  out 
of  the  ordinary,  from  a  sudden 
emphatic  thump  the  minister  at 
times  gave  the  pulpit  cushion, 
making  the  dust  fly,  to  the  efforts 
of  a  mosquito  searching  for  juice 
in  the  slippery  bald  spot  on  a 
man's  head.  The  most  grave  of  us 
could  scarcely  keep  a  sober  face  if 
we  looked  long  at  Myra's  twitching 
lips  and  dimpling  cheeks. 

"  Another    corner    Mrs.    Crossley 


UiURCH  PICTURE  UALLERr  91 

has  consecrated  to  t.  •^.  she  sat 
there  foi  ^,ar.s  and  years,  and  shed 
tears  into  her  hemstitched  pocket- 
liaiidkurchief  on  the  slightest  oc- 
casion. 

"  A  little  farther  back  is  the  seat 
where  Farmer  Cronstat,  sunburned 
and  heav-y,  has  had  a  Sunday-morn- 
ing nap  for  at  least  twenty-rive 
years. 

"  In  the  left-hand  corner  of  the 

'  "^ '  ^^^  the  man  I  ai ys  called  the 

Eoliaa  Harp-every  passing  breeze 
seemed  to  blow  .,n  his  spirit.  Under 
the  pleasant  south  wind  of  music  or 
a  good  sermon  I  have  seen  such  a 
glow  in  his  face  that  I  had  no  doubt 
he  was  in  the  third  heaven  ;  and  if 
you  once  saw  the  look  of  reverence 
which  could  creep  over  his  counte- 
nance, ;  ou'd  forgive  that  man  any- 


9i 


THE  r/LLJCF.  jRrrsr 


tiling.  Tlieii  when  tliu  north  wind 
of  something  unplcasiuit  swi-pt  the 
harp  of  Ills  spirit,  hu  was  all  down 
and  backslidden. 

"  Not  far  from  iiim  sat  an  old  man 
whose  face  was  never  anything  but 
a  network  of  wrinkles.  Poor  man, 
what  wonder  he  became  wrinkled! 
he  never  enjoyed  the  service  very 
much,  he  was  so  burdened  with 
keeping  a  sharp  eye  on  the  bad 
boys. 

"  In  the  back  seats  sat  those  mis- 
chievous boys,  no  real  bad  in  any 
one  of  them  ;  but  boys  will  be  boys. 
Why,  out  of  that  back  seat  has  come 
more  than  one  preacher,  and  good 
men  to  fill  just  as  worthy  callings. 

"  Then  there's  the  choir  corner  ;  I 
always  see  tnoviiKj  pictures  when 
I  look   there ;  one  moment   charm- 


CHURCH  PICTURE  GALl.RRr  93 

ing  me  with  liunnony,  ili,.  noxi 
monn..nt  frettiti-  ,no  ith  disconl. 
Hi'iir,  dear,  after  iuvliili;  tlie  old 
clioir  .si't  got  married  (much  of 
tlic  courting  was  ,nu  in  tiie  ciioir, 
or  on  th(^  road  home  from  practice), 
left  tlu;  choir-gallcrv,  and  settled 
down  seoately  among  the  congrega- 
tion in  the  hody  of  the  chureh. 
Some  of  them  are  now  looking  at 
their  own  boys  a-  I  gjrls  in  the 
choir-gallery;  singi.g  the  same  old 
hymns  and  sufleiing  tlie  same  old 
heart-burnings. 

"  At  one  time  a  wandering  y(  .ng 
fellow  with  a  great  musical  gift 
came  to  the  village,  and  he  was 
engaged  to  play  the  church  organ. 
Well,  he  could  play,  there  was  no 
mistake  about  that,  and  he  touched 
depths  in  our  hearts  with  that  old 


94 


THE  r/LLJGE  ARTIST 


organ  which  we  didn't  know  were 
there    before;    the    old    church    at 
times     shook     and     trembled     and 
seemed    to    reel    and    sway    under 
his   playing.     My,  how   the   people 
crowded    out   to   hear  him !    Some 
who    never    had    come    to    church 
before,  came  then.     Ah,  we  common 
peoplfe  without  any  great  gifts  of  our 
own,  or  any  way  in  which  to  ex,  ress 
what  we  thought,  and  what  we  felt, 
almost  worshipped  the  young  fellow 
'  hen    he   played   that  organ.     We 
could  hear  the  voice  of  God  calling 
to   him,   'Up,  up  My  son,   I  have 
made   thee  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels.'     But  voices  of  appetite  were 
also   calling   that  young   man ;    he 
obeyed    these,   and   went    out — and 
down.    There  were  others  too  who 
once     sat     in     those     old     square 


CHURCH  PICTURE  GALLERY  qj 

pews Ah!  the  heart-breaking 

pictures  which  hang  here  and  there 
in  the  shadowy  corners  of  that  old 
church  picture-gallery,  one  cannot 
bear  to  give  them  more  than  a  pass- 
ing glance. 

"But  I  stay  long  and   lovingly 
gazing  on  one  picture— the  prayers 
that  have  gone  up  from   that  old 
church.     I  can  see  them  like  in- 
cense rising   to   heaven.     Many  of 
the   Christians   who  once   knelt   in 
those  pews    are    now   lying    under 
the  greensward   in  the  churchyard, 
but    the    influence   of   the  prayers 
are     wrapping     the     old     church 
around  like  soft  clouds. 

"So  you  see  it  is  beautiful  both 
within  and  without;  and  I  believe 
every  one  in  the  village,  saint  and 
sinner,  is  proud  of  our  old  church." 


VII 


THE  TEA-MEETING 

"  Nothing  is  ooraraonplace  except  to  him  who  is 
himself  proflaic," 

HERE  is  one  pic- 
ture that  stands  out 
in  the  broad  light 
which  I  did  not  tell 
you  about  when  de- 
scribing the  church  picture-gallery," 
said  my  old  neighbour  the  following 
day — "  the  tea-meeting." 

I  expressed  a  strong  desire  to  hear 
it  described,  and  she  began  : 

"  Perhaps  it  was  because  we  were 

so  shut  away  from  the  world  with 

all   its    distractions   that  we   set  so 

much    store    by   this   meeting.     To 

96 


many  of  us  it  was  the  event  of  the 
year;  Mrs.  Ephraim  Hart  always 
got  her  new  bonnet,  or.  her  old  one 
fixed  over,  just  before  the  tea-meet- 
ing. 

"About  three  months  ahead  of 
time    the    choir    began   to  practice 
what    they  called   'special    music' 
and    that    was    the    beginning    of 
many  heart-burnings.    On  most  oc- 
casions two  or  more  young  men  in 
the   choir   thought  they  could  sing 
the  bass  solos  which  came  in  the  an- 
thems, and  if  the  honour  was  given 
to  one,  the  others  were  jealous.     At 
the  same  time  several  girls  were  vy- 
ing with  each  other  about  the  treble 
solos,  and  the  poor  leader  was  at  his 
wits'  end.      He  generally  managed 
as  we  believed  in  long  programs  at 
our  entertainments,  to  give  each  of 


98 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


them  a  solo,  so  they  were  all  there 
tea-meeting  night. 

"  As  the  time  drew  nearer  there 
were  meetings  to  appoint  com- 
mittees. The  committee  to  look 
after  the  provisions  met  right  here 
in  my  sitting-room  the  last  time. 

'"I'll  give  butter,'  says  one 
woman ;  '  And  I'll  give  bread,' 
says  another.  They  lived  in  the 
country  but  attended  the  village 
church.  'I'll  give  chickens,'  says 
Jacob  Bender's  wife,  another  country 
member.  Many  a  church  member 
who  would  have  felt  it  hard  work 
to  be  a  cheerful  giver  to  the  Lord 
of  silver  or  bank-notes,  foun  '  it  no 
cross  to  give  gingerbread  and  pies. 

" '  We'll  look  to  you  for  the  tarts, 
Mrs.  Law,'  says  the  chair-woman  of 
the  committee  to  the  baker's  wife 


'TUB.  TEA-MEETING 
year  after  year.     I  haven't  a  douU 
Mrs.  Law   has   made   thousands   of 
tea-meeting  tarts.     Simon  says  that 
If  there  is   no  eating  and  drinking 
in  heaven  he  does  not  know  what 
will  become  of  Mrs.  Law's  gift  for 
making  tarts.     Mrs.  Epliraim  Hart 
always  brought  in  a  boiler  full  of 
fried  cakes  from  the  farm. 

"Then  there  was  the  committee 
of  women  to  see  after  setting  tables  • 
some  wanted  to  set  them  at  one  end 
of    the    Sunday-school    room,    and 
others  at  the   opposite  end.     Some 
wanted  one  long  table,  and   others 
wanted  short  tables.     Some  wanted 
linen  table-cloths,  and  others  thought 
a  strip  of  white  cotton  would  do  well 
enough.     The  feeling  ran  pretty  high 
at  times.     IVe  known  more  than  one 
woman  to  drop  out  of  the  work  be- 


'f 


THE  VILUGE  JRTIST 


cause    she    couldn't  have   her  own 
way. 

"  There  was  always  a  little  jealousy 
hovering  'round  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  cakes.  One  woman  had  a  habit 
of  tasting  each  cake  and  pronouncing 
aloud  her  opinion  of  its  quality. 
She  was  not  a  general  favourite.  It 
was  quite  an  honour  to  have  what 
was  considered  by  the  bulk  of  the 
women  the  best  cake.  It  was  looked 
upon  as  almost  an  unpardonable  sin 
to  stint  the  eggs  nd  butter  in  the 
tea-meeting  cake. 

"  After  every  one  else  was  through, 
the  young  people  who  had  been 
waiters  had  their  tea  ;  and— well, 
boys  and  girls  when  they  get  to- 
gether act  the  same  the  world  over  I 
reckon.  The  fun  'round  that  table, 
and  the  compliments  and  flatteries, 


THE  TEA-MEETING  ,o, 

and  the  quantity  of  pie  and  cake  that 
disappeared  would  make  the  first 
chapter  of  a  story-book. 

"The  tea-meeting  was  considered 
a  good  place  to  announce  an  engage- 
ment ;  we  never  would  have  the  face 
to  put  it  in  the  newspaper  after  the 
manner  of  city  people,  but  the  women 
whispered  it  around  to  each  other  at 
the  tea-meeting  ;  and  then  the  mar- 
ried   women    told    their   husbands 
The  men,  although  they  did  not  say 
so  much  about  it,  were  just  as  will- 
ing  to  hear  as  the  women. 

"  The  girls  always  got  new  frocks 
for  the  tea-meeting— or  what  passed 
for  new,  frizzed  their  hair  extra,  and 
scented  their  handkerchiefs.  The 
young  men  got  new  neckties,  and 
handkerchiefs  with  coloured  borders 
which  they  arranged  in  the  outside 


THE  riLLAGE  ARTIST 


breast  pockets  of  their  coats,  with  a 
corner  of  the  border  sticking  up. 
This  handkerchief  was  for  show— 
I  suppose  they  had  one  for  use  in 
some  one  of  their  other  pockets. 

"  After  the  supper  came  the  pro- 
gram   of   speeches,    recitations,  an- 
thems.    As  'twas  in  the  church  the 
program  committee  did  not  think  it 
proper   to  have  love  songs,  or  any 
songs  of  a  worldly  nature.     I  have 
my  doubts  as  to  whether  real  love 
songs  should  be  called  worldly  ;  but 
I  know  everybody  does  not  agree 
with  me.     Then  some  of  the  girls 
might  recite  a  piece,  and  there  were 
speeches  from  the  ministers.      The 
latter  were  always  seated  on  the  plat- 
form of  planks  made  for  the  occasion 
and  covered  with  buffalo  robes.     The 
speeches  were  of  all  sorts  according 


THE  TEA-MEETING 


^ 

to  the  men,  but  consisted  largely  of 
jokes.  For  my  part  I  think  matri- 
mony too  serioua  a  subject  to  be 
joked  about,  but  that's  only  the 
opinion  of  one  woman. 

"  Heh,  heh,  excuse  me  for  laugh- 
ing. I  was  thinking  of  the  night 
McClosky's  boy  hid  a  cat  under  the 
platform,  and  as  soon  as  the  minis- 
ters began  the  speaking  pussy  began 
to  meow ;  and  one  of  the  jokes,  a 
matrimonial  one,  was  lost  both  in  the 
telling  and  the  hearing. 

"The  hands  of  the  church  clock 
pointed  near  to  twelve  before  the 
votes  of  thanks  were  passed  to  every 
one— we  were  never  in  too  much  of 
a  hurry  to  do  things  decently  and  in 
order-who  had  in  any  way  con- 
duced to  the  evening's  success  or 
pleasure.     By  this  time  small  jeal- 


104        THE  y ILL  AGE  ARTIST 

ousies  were  forgotten ;  we  sang 
Praise  God  from  ]Vhom,  All  Blessings 
Flow,  and  went  home  feeling  better 
acquainted  with  each  other,  and 
more  in  love  with  each  other,  for 
having  spent  that  evening  together 
at  the  tea-meeting." 


% 


ing 
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ter 
nd 
for 
ler 


VIII 

'•'THE  LITTLE  RED  SCHOOL. 
HOUSE' 

"  A  faded  shabby  little  book 

Beameared  with  many  an  inky  „u.in, 
Down  from  niy  aiient  shelve.  I  ux>k 

And  turned  the  well-worn  leave, 'again. 
Not  dearer  to  the  scholm-.  h^rt 

His  tomes  of  vellum  and  of  K„id 

Than  thia  which  has  Ijecome  a  part 

And  paroel  of  the  days  of  old.  " 

NOTHER  morning  I 
found  Mrs.  Slade  out 
in  her  garden  v.ork- 
ing  among  her  flow- 
ers.    She  seemed   to 

know  my  never-flagging  interest  in 

her   village    sketches,   and   without 

any  solicitation  she  began  : 
"  You  must  go  'round  and  see  our 

schoolhouse;  you'll  not  find  a  pret- 
105 


lo6        THE  HLLAGE  ARTIST 


tier  in  the  Province.  You  see  when 
the  things  we  planted  'round  the 
church  began  tu  grow  and  make  it 
look  so  beautiful,  1  thought  of  the 
poor  old  neglected  schoolhouse  where 
we  all  had  gone  carrying  our  ABC 
books  in  our  hands,  and  I  deter- 
mined to  see  what  I  could  do  for 
it. 

" '  You'll  have  to  get  the  permission 
of  the  trustees  before  you  can  do 
anything,'  Simon  says. 

"  There  were  three  trustees.  One, 
Adam  Sykes,  lived  on  a  farm  near 
the  village,  and  I  went  to  see  him 
first. 

"  I  found  Adam  ploughing.  The 
earth  was  rolling  up  over  his  plough- 
share rich  and  brown  and  sweef- 
smelling;  the  stubble-field  yet  un- 
touched spread  out  before  him  like  a 


UTTLE  RED  SLHOOLHOUSE  107 

great  carpet  dash,,d  with  yellow 
l-rown  and  purpk-.  -  You're  taking 
the  first  steps  towards  spreading  the 
table  for  a  hungry  world,  Mr.  Sykes,' 
I  says,  by  way  ,jf  being  agreeable.  I 
knew  he  was  a  hard  man  to  get  alone 
with.  ^ 

"  But  he  said  brusquely,  '  I  never 
think  o'  nothin-  o'  that  sort;  I'm 
ploughin'  this  field  for  the  money  I 
want  to  git  out  o'  it.  Mis.  Slade.' 

"  '  I  see  hundreds  of  hungry  .,eo- 
plo.ifeeing  f.d  as  a  result  of  yo,v 
ploughing,'  I  says. 

"  '  I  see  a  dollar  a  bushel  for  wheat, 
an'  that's  all  I  see,'  says  he. 

"  I  then  told  him  what  I  wanted 
to  c'o  with  the  old  schoolhouse. 

Flowers  and  trees ! '  he  almost 
yelled.  'It'll  never  do!  They  cost 
'Money,   and   I    reckon    the  people 


io8        THE  FILL  AGE  ARTIST 

think  they  are  payin'  taxes  'nough 
a'ready  ! ' 

"  I  told  him  it  would  not  cost  the 
people  a  cent. 

"  Then  he  said  the  property  be- 
longed to  the  township,  and  he  reck- 
oned they  did  not  want  it  cut  up  and 
mutilated. 

"The  more  I  said  the  more  he 
argued,  and  I  left  him  and  went  to 
see  the  other  trustee. 

"  This  man  was  as  hard  to  reason 
with  as  the  first — I  often  wfflnder 
when  it  is  so  easy  to  be  agreeable 
why  more  men  don't  practice  it.  He 
said,  '  My  idee  o'  children  goin'  to 
school  is  to  learn  books,  an'  I  don't 
b'lieve  in  them  losin'  time  a-starin' 
at  posies.  They'll  never  make  their 
livin'  in  that  way.  The  teacher's 
business,'  he  says,  '  is  to  make  'em 


^'i-ii.    m  m 


LnTLE  RED  SCHOOLHOVSE  ,09 
keep  their  eyes  on  their  g'ography 
an  grammar,  their  readin'  an' 
wntin'  an'  'rithmetic' 

"  Well,  I  saw  I  could  do  nothing 
with  him,  so  I  went  to  the  third 
man,  Jonathan  Gooden.  I  left  him 
last  because  he  lived  the  farthest  from 
the  village. 

"Jonathan  and  I  had  gone  to  that 
same  old  school  together,  and  had 

stood  side  by  side  in  the  same  classes. 
We  were  almost  boy  and  girl  sweet- 
hearts in  those  old  days,  and  if  Simon 
had  not  come  along  a  few  years  later 
dear  knows  where  it  would  have 
ended. 

Don't  bother  your  head,  Serena  ' 
says  he  kindly,  when  I  made  known 
to  him  my  business, '  that  old  school- 
house  ain't  worth  all  that  trouble 
Its  an  oM  building  now,  as  old  as  the 


--.•  c.m'.ti 


THE  VILUGE  ARTIST 


village  itself.  You  and  I  ain't  ex- 
actly young  any  longer,  an'  we  'tended 
there  when  we  were  youngsters  to- 
gether.' 

"  '  That's  just  one  reason  I  think 
it's  worth  bothering  about,'  I  says, 
'  because  it's  old  and  full  of  recollec- 
tions, some  that  bring  tears,  and  some 
that  bring  smiles.  It  seems  to  me 
decorating  the  home  of  these  old  rec- 
ollections is  like  planting  flowers  on 
the  graves  of  those  we  think  a  lot  of.' 

"  He  had  been  ploughing,  too,  but 
he  threw  the  reins  which  had  been 
around  his  body,  over  a  stump  and 
invited  me  to  take  a  seat  beside  him 
on  a  log  which  lay  on  the  ground. 

"  The  air  had  a  tender  feeling  in  it, 
like  the  very  sky  itself  might  at  any 
moment  weep  sympathetic  tears,  a 
lone  pine  tree  sobbed  as  though  be- 


LITTLE  RED  SCHOQLHOUSE  „, 

moaning  its  solitary  condition,  and  a 
robin  in  its  topmost  branches  chirped 
sharply  and  cheerfully,  as  if  bound 
to  see  the  bright  side  of  life  in  spite 
of  tears  and  sobs.  I  knew  this  was 
my  time  to  brighten  up  some  of  the 
old  pictures  that  hung  around  the 
schoolhouse,  so  I  says  : 

"'Many  of  them  are  dead  and 
gone  now,  Jonathan,  whom  we  used 
to  know  in  that  old  schoolhouse.' 

'"That  they  be,'  said  Jonathan 
And  many  of  our  brightest  '  -pes 
that  were  born  there  are  dead  an' 
gone  too,  Serena,'  says  he,  scraping 
the  ground  with  the  toe  of  his 
boot. 

"I  knew  what  he  meant.  Jona- 
than took  it  hard  when  Simon  came 
around.     He  never  married  himself 

" '  Do  you  mind  that  old  book,'  he 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


iii 


says,  'out  of  which  yoa  used  to  try 
to  explain  the  rules  of  grammar  to 
me,  Serena?  You  marked  it,  an' 
wrote  in  it,  tryin'  to  knock  'em  into 
Kv  head.  I  don't  understand  the 
rules  any  better  now  than  I  did  then, 
but  I  have  that  old  inky  thumb- 
marked  book  yet.  Bring  it  down 
once  in  a  while  an'  look  at  it,  some- 
thing like  one  looks  at  the  photo- 
graph of  some  one  belongin'  to  you 
that's  dead.' 

"  '  Do  you  remember  Jimmy  Gray, 
Jonathan,'  I  says,  to  change  to  some- 
thing more  cheerful,  '  who  used  to 
sit  on  the  front  bench  dangling  his 
bare  sunburn;  legs  that  were  too  short 
to  reach  the  floor  ? ' 

'"Why,  yes,'  says  he,  heartily, 
'  that  sandy  complected  freckled-face 
little  chap  with  light  hair.     I  mind 


mjtm^^ 


him  well.    Ha,hal    He'd  cry  if  you'd 

only  make  a  face  at  him.' 

"'And    turn   as   red   as  a  boiled 

lobster  if  you'd  praise  him,'  I  says 

'Jimmy  as  he  grew  older  and  began 
to  read,  you  remember,'  I  says,  'he 
always  could  say  off  by  heart  all  the 
little  pieces  of  poetry  in  the  school 
readers.     You  mind  him  reciting  Ue 
Boy  Stood  on  the  Burning  Deck,  one 
Friday  afternoon,  and  he  kept  saying 
It  over  and  over  to  himself  for  a 
month  after  ? ' 

'"I  mind  it  well,' he  says,  slap- 
Pmg  his  knee  and  laughing  '  We 
called  him  Casy  Biancy  for  a  nick- 
name, you  know,  an'  he  grew  mad 
an  cried_he  was  a  techy  little 
chap-then  the  teacher  got  vind  of 
It  -ind  m  ,de  us  quit.' 
'"Jimmy   is  a  great   poet  now,' 


nm 


114        THE  yiLLylGE  ARTIST 


V'  i< 


I  says,  '  has  his  books  printed  and 
read  by  the  hundreds.' 

"  '  Yes,'  says  he,  looking  thought- 
ful, '  it's  worth  while  decorating  that 
schoolhouse  in  honour  of  Jimmy 
himself.' 

"  '  Then,'  I  says,  '  behind  him  sat 

Evangeline  Harris,  who  had  made 

up  her  mind  to  be  a  school-teacher  ; 

but  poor  Evangeline  tried  over  and 

over   again    and    never    could    pass 

an   examination    to   get   a  teacher's 

certificate.      The     girl     was     nigh 

broken-hearted.      Then     she     went 

and  learned  nursing  at  the  hospital, 

and  when  she  got  through  with  that 

some  wealthy  woman  took  her  off 

across  the  Atlantic  to  Roma,  where 

she  went  to  see  the  Coliseum.     And 

I  might  say  she  took  us  all  to  see 

the  Coliseum,   for  the.e  was  not  a 


LITTLE  REDJCHOOLHOVSP.  ,.5 
man  or  won  ,,n  in  ihTT^^^^^^^ 
did  not  with  his  or  her  mind's  eye 
see    It    because    Evangeline  Harris 
had  been  there.     My !' I  says, '  if  the 
seats  ,n  that  old  sehoolhouse  could 
talk,  could  tell  all  the  dreams  that 
have  been  dreamed,  and  the  castles 
that  have  been  built  by  those  who 
have  sat  on  them,  there'd  be  some- 
thing worth  listening  to.' 

"'That  there  would,' he  says 
"Then   I  says,  'You   mind  that 
boy  that  no  one  knew  who  owned 

.  hT '  T"^"^  "P'  ^""  '•^'"^'"ber,  as  a 
htle  baby  on  a  door-step  (sat  on  the 
iet  of  the  sehoolhouse  next  the 
-all);    his    feet    toed   in,  and    his 

elbows  flared,  knees  mostly  patched; 
he  IS  now  a  Cabinet  minister  ' 

"'An'the  fellow  on  the  seat  be- 
hmd   him,'  he  says,  'also  next  the 


ii6       THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

wall,  pockets  always  bulgin'  with 
trash ;  used  to  feed  an  old  rat  that 
stuck  his  head  out  through  a  hole 
in  the  floor  with  the  crusts  from  the 
children's  lunches ;  always  foolin' 
with  some  animal ;  now  he's  charge 
o'  the  Zoo  in  the  city.' 

"  Both  of  us  sat  silent  for  some 
time  gazing  down  the  dim  vista  of 
the  past. 

" '  There  was  Billy  Bond,'  he 
broke  in  at  last. 

" '  That  was  the  little  chap  who 
was  always  tossing  back  his  head 
to  get  the  hair  out  of  his  eyes,'  I 
says,  'had  a  kind  of  cowlick  that 
threw  a  lock  down  over  his  left  eye  ? ' 

"  '  Yes,'  he  says,  '  he  wouldn't 
learn  anything  either  ;  made  a  mess 
o'  spellin',  was  nowhere  in  g'ography 
or  grammar,   couldn't  remember   a 


LITTLE  RED  SCHOQLHOUSE  ,,7 
word  of  history,  waa  thrashed,  kep' 
in,  and  called  a  blockhead.     Then 
'long  came  a  man  to  the  village  who 
talked  about  grasses,  an'  flowers  an' 
trees  ;  butterflies,  and  birds,  an'  bugs 
an'  Billy  took  to  that  man  like    ' 
Highlander  to  his  bag-pipes;    went 
walkm-  with  him,  an'  talkin'  with 
him;   an'  now  that  blockhead  boy 
IS  professor  of  natural  history  in  the 
university. 

" '  An'  Kate  Bennett,  pretty  Kate 
whom  Billy  ,vanted  to  marry 
(Kate  had  no  eyes  for  anybody 
after  that  chap  o'  hers  died  down 
there  in  Cape  Town)  went  as  a  mis- 
sionary to  Africa.  I  always  thought 
a  homely  girl  would  do  well  'nough 
to  be  et  up  by  them  cannibals.' 

"  ^  '^^^'ok  my  head  in  disapproval, 
and  Jonathan  laughed. 


■M.f 


1 18        THE  niLJGE  ARTIST 

"  We  were  both  silent  for  awhile 
again,  while  the  pine  tree  sobbed, 
and  the  robin  sang,  then  I  says, 
'  Amelia  Brigden  married  a  foreign 
looking  chap  and  went  off  to  live  in 
New  York.  The  husband  has  grown 
rich  on  stocks,  and  Amelia  is  a 
grand  lady'now.  Balls,  and  dinners 
and  dresses,  I  reckon  by  what  she 
says  in  her  letters,  takes  up  most  of 
her  time.  She  writes  home  about  it, 
and  boasts  considerable  to  her  broth- 
er's wife  here  in  the  village  ;  she  says 
she's  president  of  three  or  four 
fashionable  woman's  clubs,  and  is  a 
society  leader;  those  were  her  very 
words  in  the  last  letter.' 

"  I  heaved  a  little  sigh,  for  I  always 
wanted  to  do  something  worth  while 
myself  in  the  world.  Jonathan 
must  have  heard  the  sigh,  for  says  he: 


UTILE  RED  SCHOOLHOUSE  ,,9 

"  '  It  depends  altogether  what  you 
are  leadin'  whether  you  have  a  right 
to  feel   proud   o'  bein'  a   lender.     I 
don't  know,  'cordin'  to  what  I  read 
in    the    newspapers,  as  I  would   be 
very    vain    o'   leadin'   some   o'   the 
capers  o'  these  New  Yorkers.     You 
know,'  he  added,  after  a  short  pause, 
'  Melia  was  pretty  scarce  to  home,  in 
her  young  days,  an'  p'raps  prosperity 
kind  o'  upsets  her.     Alwaya  the  way 
I  hear.' 

"  '  If  wo  want  to  know  whore  most 
of  the  old  girls  have  gone,'  I  says 
'we  must  look  in  the  direction  the 
boys  have  taken.' 

"Then  we  talked  about  the  chap 
that  whittled  the  desks,  and  after- 
wards became  a  carpenter  and 
builder,  and  the  one  who  pretended 
to  faint  when  he  wished  to  escape  a 


m 


120       THE  FILLAIE  ARTIST 

class.  '  An'  now  he's  one  o'  these 
liere  cunnin'  lawyers,'  says  Jonathan. 
And  the  boy  who  was  always  sailing 
a  little  boat,  he  had  made  with  a 
jack-knife,  on  every  puddle  of  water, 
and  now  he  is  sailing  the  high  seas. 

"  '  Some  o'  the  boys,'  said  Jonathan 
proudly,  '  have  carved  their  names 
where  generations  yet  unborn  shall 
read  'em  ! ' 

"  '  One  or  two  of  them  at  least,'  I 
says,  '  have  only  succeeded  in  c  ving 
their  names  on  the  backs  of  seats,  and 
on  the  trunks  of  trees  that  grow  in 
much  frequented  places.' 

" '  Three  or  four  o'  the  boys  fill 
drunkards'  graves,'  says  Jonathan 
sadly,  '  an'  poor  Joe  Conners  is  in  the 
penitentiary  for  forgery.' 

"  He  was  very  sad  after  this,  for  he 
and    Joe   had    been  chums — sat  to- 


LITTLE  RED  SCHOOLHOVSK  „, 

getherin  the  old  «choolhou«e ;  «,  to 
cheer  him  up  i  suys, 

"'Will   you  ever  forget   the  day 
that  Zoo  chai>_you  know  he  was  the 
mischief  of  the  school-pretended  he 
«at  down  on  ^  pin.  a„,i  he  suddenly 
when  the  schoolroom  was  unusually 
qu>et,gavea  howl  Ht  to  wake  the 
dead  and    held    up   to   the   startled 
school-teacher  a  pin  which  he  had 
bent  with  his  fingers.' 

"'An'    another     day/    .ays     he, 
laughing  fit  to  roll  off' the  log  'he 
brought  a  mouse  to  school,  and  let 
•t  go  to  run  'round  the  floor  under 
the  girls' seats.     There  was  a  chorus 
of  smothered  oh.,  and  in   the  twin- 
kling of  an  eye  CA-ery  girl  had  her 
feet  gathered   upon   her  seat ;  even 
the  schoolma'am    was   holding   her 
skirts  up  to  her  ankles. 


122        THE  TILLAGE  ARTIST 

"  '  Oh,'  says  he  at  last,  gasping  for 
breath,  '  go  on  and  decorate  the  old 
schoolhouse  as  grand  as  you  please  ; 
it's  more  worthy  of  it  than  any  other 
place  in  the  village  !  I'll  see  to  it,' 
he  says,  '  that  the  other  two  men  are 
agreeable.  They  generally  come  in 
to  my  way  of  thinking  in  the  end.' 

"  '  Then,'  I  says,  '  it  will  make  it 
a  pleasant  place  for  the  children  that 
attend  there  now.' 

"  '  Yes,'  he  says  absently,  '  I  sup- 
pose it  will ;  but  it's  a  monument  to 
them  old  days  /  want  to  set  placed 
there.' " 


^ 


IX 

THE  RICHEST  MAN  IN  THE 
VILLAGE 

•  We  ..ever  shall  be  blessed  nntil  «e  know  !,„» 
much  n,„re  we  w.uttban  we  bave  ever  Igh?,. 

WAS  standing  in  my 
neighbour's    garden, 
when    a    man    with 
iron-gray      whiskers 
and     hair,     a     very 
slight   stoop  of  shoulders,  and  the 
general  appearance  of  having  reached 
genial  middle  life,  came  along  the 
sidewalk.     He  looked  in,  spoke  pleas- 
antly to  my  companion,  and  acted  as 
If  he  might  have  stopped  to  chat  if 
there  had  not  been  a  stranger  present. 
"That's  our  rich  man,"  said  Mrs. 
blade,  as  she  busily  grasped  handfuls 

123 


124        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

of  weeds  which  the  recent  rains  had 
developed. 

"  Why,"  I  said,  "  I  thought  that 
was  the  grocer  that  kept  the  shop 
down  there  at  the  corner.  I  did  not 
dream  he  was  rich." 

"  Yes,"  she  returned  without  lift- 
ing her  eye's  from  her  work,  "  he's 
very  rich,  the  richest  man  in  the 
village." 

I  was  pu-./sled,  and  this  inscrutable 
woman  allowed  me  to  remain  so  for 
a  few  moments,  then  she  began  : 

"  He  was  an  only  child  and  had 
intended  to  go  to  college  and  prepare 
himself  for  some  profession,  but  just 
as  he  was  ready  for  college  his  father, 
who  kept  the  grocery  then,  hfid  a 
stroke  of  paralysis,  so  the  lad's  plans 
were  all  changed.  There  was  no  help 
for  it,  he  had  to  stay  at  home,  mind 


the  grocery,  and  support  his  father 
and  mother.     I  reckon  'twas  quite  a 
bow  to  him  at  first,  it  is  usually  a 
blow  to  all  of  us-who  are  not  giants 
mfaith-to  have  our  plans  knocked 
m  the  head  ;  but  he  soon  recovered 
and  set  his  whole  mind  towards  gath- 
enng  riches." 

"  Dear,  dear,"  I  exclaimed,  looking 
after  him  ard  thinking  of  all   the 
misers  I  had  ever  read  about.     "He 
seems  quite  humble  in  his  grocery 
weighing    out    the    tea   and   sugar 
counting  the  bars  of  soap."   I  added,' 
How  did  he  make  his  wealth?" 
"  Picked  it  up  here  and  there  every 

day,  a  little  at  a  time."  she  returned 

You   see  when   the  young   fellow 

had  to  step  into  his  father's  shoes  in 

the  grocery  a  lot  of  responsibility  fell 

on  his  shoulders;  and  even  in  one 


126        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

short  year  he  was  ricli  in  experience 
— grocery  experience. 

"  Then  there  were  the  people  hard 
to     please;     Mrs.     McCready     who 
thought  the  tea  in  his  grocery  had 
lost  its  flavour,  and  Mrs.  Bailey  who 
complained    about   the   butter,   and 
Mrs.  Jones  who  said  the  soap  and 
starch,  of  which  he  had  bought  a 
large    stock,   were    no    good.     And 
there  was  Denis  Moriscn,  who  came 
to  the  village  to  work  on  the  canal, — 
they  were  dredging  it  here  then — he 
ran  a  grocery  bill  for  himself  and 
nine  of  a  family  until  pay-day,  and 
ran  himself  away  in  the  night-time 
without  paying  his  grocery  bill.    And 
there  was  the  other  grocery  in  the 
village  that  failed,  and  the  stock  was 
sold   off  below   cost,  and    the   poor 
young  fellow  who  was  endeavouring 


^--V«Sfli* 


to  pay  his  debts  one  hundred  cents 

to  the  dollar  could  sell  scarcely  any. 
thing  for  months.  He  grew  white 
and  thin  and  worn  looking,  but  he 
had  time  through  all  tlio.se  experi- 
ences to  grow  rich  in  patience. 

"Although  the  college  doors  were 
barred  against  him,  he  seemed  de- 
termmed    not    to   be    shut    out   of 
everything,  so  he  went  around  with 
his  eyes  and  ears  open.     I  often  think 
myself  that   Nature  with  her  great 
storehouse   says  to  every  one  of  us, 
Help  yourself.'    'Take   what  you 
want.     All  I  have  is  yours.'    And 

I  ve  come  to  believe,  after  all  these 
years  of  watching  that  all  of  us  get 
pretty  nearly  what  we  want  most. 
Now  that  man  ^,..en  he  was  a  lad 
wanted  to  hmn  thn.gs,  and  when 
he  went  for  a  walk  Sundays-he  had 


.Bfawi.iiirW^ui«&>w^  -^n 


* 


128        THE  riLLAGE  ARTIST 

not  time  to  go  any  other  day — he 
saw  the  flowers  and  the  plants,  and 
the  rocks.  He  hetvrd  the  birds 
and  learned  their  different  notes. 
Preachers  may  not  agree  with  me,  I 
don't  know,  but  I  believe  all  those 
children  of  the  woods  and  of  the 
fields  were  preaching  great  uplifting 
sermons  to  him,  and  that  that  Sun- 
day walk  did  the  boy's  soul  s  well 
as  his  body  good.  I've  come  to 
know  that  religious  tracts  and  revi- 
val meetings  with  their  stirring 
songs,  earnest  prayers  and  moving 
sermons,  good  and  all  as  they  are, 
aro  not  the  only  means  of  helping  a 
man  to  keep  his  body  under,  or  his 
spirit  on  top,  whichever  way  you 
have  a  mind  to  put  it.  And  I  have 
thought  that  when  we  go  on  to 
where  sermons  are  not  required,  per- 


\:\ 


Richest  man  av  vill/ige 


129 


haps  one  of  our  chief  delights  will 
be  looking  from  the  God  side  at 
those  simple,  commonplace  things, 
and  seeing  the  whole  of  what  they 
mean." 

Mrs.  Slade  weeded  a  few  moments 
in  silence,  then  she  resumed  : 

"The  outcome  of  all  the  lad's 
studying  was,  that  very  soon  there 
wasn't  much  that  any  one  knew 
about  those  outdoor  things  that  he 
didn't  know.  '  It's  almost  as  good 
as  goin'  intil  a  college  hall  to  go  in- 
til  that  grocery,'  said  Mrs.  McTavish 
(she's  our  smart  woman— Scotch). 
If  it's  only  a  pound  of  sugar  he  is 
weighing  you  out,  he'll  tell  you  a 
lot  about  the  sugar-cane,  and,  even 
when  the  thermometer  is  twenty  be- 
low zero,  you're  off  down  South,  walk- 
ing among  its  tall  silky  stalks,  with 


li^ 


130        THE  TILLAGE  JRTIST 

the  soft  southern  breezes  fanning  your 
cheeks,  and  the  mocking-bird  mak- 
ing melody  for  your  ears — and 
heart.  And  if  it  is  a  hot  day  in 
summer,  thermometer  up  near  ninety, 
and  you've  lost  your  relish  for  com- 
mon food,  and  run  into  his  grocery 
for  a  little  something  appetizing,  he, 
while  he  me'asures  you  out,  perhaps 
a  pint  of  maple  syrup,  will  begin  to 
talk  of  the  maple  sugar  groves  fur- 
ther north.  And  you  see  the  great 
gray  trunks  of  the  trees,  the  spread- 
ing branches,  the  long  dim  aisles  lead- 
ing everywhere.  Spring  stirs  in  your 
blood,  you  hear  the  wind  in  the 
trees,  the  call  of  the  crow  and  the 
blue  jay ;  and  before  you  know  it 
your  temperature  has  fallen  several 
degrees.  He  has  educated  us  all  here 
in  the  village  a  pretty  considerable. 


RICHEST  MAN  IN  VILLAGE    iji 

"  Then,  while  he  was  still  young, 
he  and  Dorothy  Brown  loved  each 
other,  any  one  with  half  an  eye  in 
her  head  could  see  that ;  but  how 
could  he  take  a  wife  in  there  with 
his  poor  old  ailing  father  and 
mother?  After  awhile  Dorothy 
grew  miffed  because  he  did  not 
speak  up  his  mind,  picked  up  with 
another  man  (love  was  not  the  eter- 
nal thing  to  her  that  it  was  to  him), 
and  her  old  lover  looking  on,  pale 
and  silent,  grew  rich  in  sorrow.  It's 
not  generally  looked  on  in  that  way, 
but  I've  been  long  enough  in  this 
world  to  learn,  that  for  fitting  a  man 
to  live  among  his  fellow  beings,  a 
brother  to  his  kind,  there  isn't  any- 
thing more  valuable  than  riches  of 
that  sort. 

"  In  time  he  grew  to  know  so  much 


132        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


that  it  became  the  regular  praetiec 
for  the  whole  village  to  go  lo  him 
for  advice  on  all  sorts  of  subjects, 
from  the  selling  of  Widow  McShane's 
pig  to  the  casting  of  Jerry  McClosky's 
vote.  So  he  grew  as  rich  as  Croesus 
in  power. 

"  When  he  had  gone  through  so 
much  himself,  so  many  trials,  he  had 
■rympathy  with  others  in  trouble, 
time  to  listen  to  every  one's  story  or 
complaint,  so  of  course  he  grew  rich 
in  friends.  The  very  dog  rose  to  his 
feet  and  wagged  his  tail  when  he 
heard  his  footstep,  the  grocery  cat 
went  to  meet  him  every  morning 
and  rubbed  her  sides  against  his  legs, 
and  even  his  delivery  horse  looked 
happy  when  he  was  the  driver. 

"  Then,"  said  my  informant, 
straightening    up    from    her   stoop- 


RICHEST  MAN  /N  I^ILLAGE   133 


ing  position  to  look  me  full  in  the 
face,  "  from  being  interested  in  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  vil- 
lage, every  walking,  flying,  creeping 
thing,  every  growing  thing,  even  to 
the  little  dusty  weed  by  the  road- 
side, you  can  easily  see,  as  the  years 
went  by,  he  grew  rich  in  what  the 
Bible  sets  the  highest  value  on.  So 
I  haven't  a  doubt  he's  the  richest 
man  in  the  village." 


X 


OF  ACTORS  AND  MUSIC 

"  Very  fast  and  mnootli  wp  fly, 
Spirits.  thou,(li  the  tlenli  Ik"  by  ; 
All  lookH  fewi  not  from  the  eye 
Nor  all  hmrJnfiCH  from  the  ear : 
^Ve  cjyi  hearken  and  espy 
Without  either." 

ES,"  said  Mrs.  Slade 
reminiscently  —  as 
if  she  had  been 
cogitating  on  the 
subject — the  next 
time  we  were  enjoying  a  tcte-a-tvk, 
"  Mrs.  Fitzpatrick  had  lived  so  long 
among  the  artificials  off  there  in  the 
city  that  it  took  her  some  time  to 
come  back  to  where  she  could  enjoy 
the  fresh  and  natural.  Everything 
that  she  saw  or  heard,  when  she  first 
came  back,  put  her  in  mind  of  some- 

•34 


OF  M:T<)RS  ASD  music     135 


thing  she  liad  stun  or  heard  on  the 
stage.  Slie  raved  about  this  actor 
and  the  other  uctor,  eallinf;  them  all 
by  name  as  frocly  as  if  they  had  been 
her  own  firist  cousins.  The  most  of 
them  had  curious  foreign-sounding 
names  I  never  could  remember — if  I 
had  wanted  to  do  so.  She  seemed  to 
set  great  store  by  knowing  them  all 
— having  seen  each  one  act.  '  Bern- 
hardt is  divine,'  she  says,  clasping 
those  two  white  hands  of  hers  to- 
gether, and  letting  her  eyes  roll  back 
in  her  head. 

"  I  had  in  my  life  seen  gleams  of 
'ivinity  like  flashes  of  lightning  in 
human  faces,  but  I  never  yet  have 
seen  the  man  or  woman  whom  I 
dared  to  call  divine  ;  but  I  said  noth- 
ing, I  wanted  time,  and  our  whole- 
some village  life  to  work  the  cure. 


miiiiiuu' 


136        THE  TILLAGE  ARTIST 


"  She  went  on  to  say  that  she  doted 
on  the  drama,  that  the  world  and  life 
were  so  tame  she  thought  we  required 
the  stage  to  waken  us  up  a  bit. 

" '  Our  village  is  a  stage,'  I  says, 
'  and  all  the  men  and  women  are  the 
actors  and  the  actresses,  even  little 
children — the  babies  have  their  part 
to  play,'  I  says,  '  bringing  in  on  the 
stage  of  life  nearly  all  the  unselfish 
love  we've  got.' 

"  But  she  shook  her  head  and  said 
nothing  but  the  tragedies  of  Shake- 
speare suited  her.  '  Think  of  his  in- 
sight into  the  human  heart,'  she 
says, '  and  the  way  he  shows  up  hu- 
man passion.' 

"  I  answered  her  in  the  words  of 
the  poet, 

"  '  Let  Shakespeare  write  his  tragedy, 
There  is  enough  in  life  for  me.' 


OF  ACTORS  AND  MUSIC     137 

"  '  Nothing  happens  here  to  make 
even  a  ripple  on  life's  surface,'  she 
says;  'it  is  tragedy  that  stirs  your 
blood,  and  you  can't  see  that  any- 
where to  perfection  but  at  the  the- 
atre.' 

"'There's  a  tragedy  being  acted 
in  many  a  bosom  right  around  you,' 
I  says;  'you're  probably  elbowing 
tragedy  every  time  you  get  into  a 
little  village  crowd.  Dead  hopes, 
slain  joys,  strangled  ambitions, 
you're  walking  beside  them  day  by 
day.' 

"Then  she  clasped  her  hands  to- 
gether and  says  she,  '  It  is  so  thrill- 
ing to  see  remorse — Shakespeare's 
soul-harrowing  remorse ! ' 

"Sandy  McBain,  the  poor  young 
chap  whose  appetite  for  strong  drink 
had   altogether   mastered   him,  was 


138        THE  y ILL  AGE  ARTIST 

passing  on  the  other  side  of  the 
street  just  then,  and  I  says,  '  Look  at 
that  poor  boy  ;  think  of  the  tragedy 
that  is  going  on  on  the  stage  of  his 
soul  every  day  of  the  year,  every 
hour — perhaps  every  minute  of  the 
day ;  a  fight,'  I  saj-s,  '  between  Right 
and  Wrong',  and  before  the  fight  is 
through  one  of  them  is  slain.  And 
I  haven't  a  doubt,'  I  says,  '  if  it  is 
Right  that's  gone  under,  that,  on  his 
sobering  up  days,  Remorse  stalks 
iron-shod  over  the  plain  of  his  spirit. 
I  can  see  it  all  any  time  I  let  my 
mind's  eye  run  in  that  direction. 

" '  And  there's  So-and-So,'  I  says, 
mentioning  the  name  of  another 
young  man  here  in  the  village  (she 
knew  all  about  the  circumstances 
as  well  as  myself),  who  has  bitterly 
wronged  two  fellow  beings — a  woman 


OF  ACTORS  AND  MUSIC     139 

and  a  child.  He  has  slain  trust  and 
innocence,'  I  says, '  and  has  put  on  the 
stage  of  the  world  a  tragedy  to  which 
no  human  eye  can  see  an  end.  And 
I  can  see  his  sin,  in  the  middle  of 
the  pitchy  night,  standing  before 
him  in  glaring  scarlet,  int:  oducing 
him  to  Remorse ;  who,  after  that  in- 
troduction, must  be  his  lifelong 
companion. 

" '  And  the  tragedy  in  the  woman's 
soul,'  I  says,  '  where  all  the  sweetest 
things  that  belong  there  are  lying 
stark  in  death,  and  the  remorse  that 
will  dog  her  every  footstep,  any 
woman  has  only  to  sit  still  long 
enough  to  let  herself  see  it  all. 

" '  And  the  little  tender  baby,'  I 
says,  '  who  can't  see  the  tragedy  of 
having  to  work  out  the  plan  of  life 
without  a  background. 


f 


140        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

" '  There  are  the  fathers  and  moth- 
ers dying  by  inches  watching  their 
children  going  astray,'  I  says,  '  and 
the  children  breaking  hearts  over 
unworthy  parents.  There  are  the 
tragedies  of  the  men  und  women 
who  have  made  mistakes  in  their 
marriages — J  have  known  them  on 
both  sides  of  the  house  right  here  in 
the  village,'  I  says.  '  Love  has  been 
ignored  before  marriage,  or  slain 
after  it,  and  the  future  for  them  is  a 
drear  gray  path  which  they  mus., 
walk  alone,  as  far  as  earthly  com- 
panionship is  concerned ;  or  \  orse 
still,  with  a  ball  and  chain  attached 
to  them,  .ind  it's  a  pretty  blind 
person  who  cannot  see  Remorse  link- 
ing arms  with  them  to  accompany 
them  to  the  end  of  the  journey. 

"  '  You'll  have  to  shut  your  eyes,' 


c-  .w»cr"P«.   "■; 


OF  ACTORS  AND  MUSIC 


141 


I  says,  '  or  you'll  see  tragedy  every- 
where. I  reckon  it  was  introduced 
unto  the  stage  of  the  world  by  the 
first  Adam,  when  he  slew  Purity 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  and  it  will 
stay  here  until  the  Second  Adam 
drives  it  off. 

"'If  you're  in  the  mood,'  I  says, 
'  you  can  hear  tragedy  in  the  howl 
of  a  dog,  the  lonesome  meow  of  a 
cat,  the  cry  of  some  of  the  wild 
birds ;  for  the  whole  creation,'  I 
says,  'groaneth  and  travaileth  in 
pain — according  to  Scripture.' 

"  '  I  must  confess,'  she  interrupted, 
with  a  little  laugh,  and  a  shiver  of 
her  slim  shoulders, — as  if  she  had 
scarcely  even  heard  what  I  had  said 
— '  that  I  like  to  see  blood-shed  and 
ghost-walking.' 

"  '  And  there  are  the  old  wounds. 


142        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


thought  to  be  healed,  that  bleed 
afresh  if  something  touches  them,'  I 
says,  continuing,  '  and  the  ghosts  of 
deeds  done,  and  of  deeds  left  undone 
that  walk  and  haunt,  oft  in  the 
stilly  night.  There  are  tragedies  of 
love  and  murder  (if  murderous 
thought  is  murder)  in  most  people's 
experiences — oh,  no  end  of  them ! 
There  isn't  one  of  us,'  I  says, '  but 
has  our  tragedies,  and  the  better  we 
are,  and  the  better  we  try  to  become, 
the  more  we  are  conscious  that  the 
best  in  us — patience,  long-suifering, 
love — is  being  worsted,  disabled,  and 
slain,  many  and  many  a  time. 
There  are  not  many  days,'  I  says, 
'  that  the  archangel  and  the  dragon 
do  not  have  a  struggle  on  the  stage 
of  the  soul  of  every  man  and  woman 
you  ever  met.' 


OF  yfCTORS  AND  MUSIC     143 


"She  clasped  her  hands  to  her 
heart  and  gasped,  '  Oh  don't  be  too 
realistic ! ' 

"  '  It's  real  life  I'm  showing  you, 
not  something  prepared  for  an  even- 
ing's entertainment,'  I  says, '  and  like 
all  real  things  it  is  more  interesting  to 
me  than  the  counterfeit.' 

"  Then  she  branched  into  music, 
and  said  she  was  starving  for  some 
good  music ;  that  there  was  nothing 
really  worth  listening  to  but  the  great 
oratorios,  such  as  The  Creation,  or  the 
Messiah,  which  we  had  never  heard 
here  in  the  village,  or  some  of  the 
operas;  nothing  else  had  power  to 
reach  the  soul,  she  said. 

"  '  I  can't  agree  with  you  there,'  I 
says.  '  Mrs.  Green,  my  neighbor,  lay 
a-dying,  and  although  she  was  a  be- 
liever, somehow  her  soul  got  all  down- 


144       THE  VILLAGE  ARTISr 

cast,  ifnd  she  was  full  of  fears  at  the 
thought  of  going  into  the  great  un- 
known world.  We  never  could 
gather  together  a  great  choir  of 
several  hundred — you  say  that  it 
takes  that  many  to  sing  the  Messiah 
— but  Kirsty  McAlister  brought  her 
accordion,  and  sat  by  her  bedside,  and 
with  a  little  crack  in  her  voice  sang, 
Sun  of  My  Sotd,  and  Mrs.  Green's 
soul  was  lifted  right  out  of  the 
slough  of  despond,  and  she  was 
quite  willing  to  go  on  her  appointed 
way.  And,'  I  says,  '  many  and 
many  a  time  some  old  saint,  or  a 
body  of  'em,  singing,  Arise,  My  Soul, 
Arise,  Shake  Off  Thy  Guilty  Fears,  has 
given  my  own  soul  power  to  raise 
her  wings  from  the  dust  of  earth. 
When  I  was  still  young,'  I  says,  '  I 
heard  Granny  Neilson  quavering — 


OF  ACTORS  AND  MUSIC 


|4S 

she  always  had  that  kind  of  a  trem- 
ble in  her  vow— Arm  Me  With 
Jealous  Care,  as  in  Thy  Sight  to 
Live,  and  it  has  made  me  walk  more 
circumspectly  ever  since. 

When  the  angels  had  a  message 
of  peace  on  earth,  and  good-will  to 
men,  on  that  first  Christmas  morn- 
ing, they  did  not  come  with  it  to 
the  priests  and  scribes,'  I  says,  'or 
the  learned  and  great  men,  but  they 
brought  it  to  the  lowly  shepherds ; 
so  I  have  often  thought  that  the 
angels  had  whispered  some  message 
to  our  village  choir,  when  I  sat  there 
in  the  church  and  heard  them  sing, 
Tlic  Shining  Shore,  or, 

"  There's  a  land  that  is  taitsr  than  day, 
And  by  faith  we  can  see  it  afar." 


" '  There's  something  about  those 


146       THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

two  hymns,  words  and  music,'  1  says, 
*  that  seems  to  wash  the  dust  and  din 
of  earth  from  souls — poor  simple 
souls  like  ours  of  the  village  any- 
way. 

"  'frmn  Greenland's  Icy  Mountains,' 
I  says,  '  sung  by  that  thoir,  with  the 
spirit  and  the  understanding,  has 
drawn  a  big  collection  out  of  the 
pockets  of  a  congregation  not  noted 
for  their  liberality — to  anything 
foreign  ;  and  I  think  a  tune  must 
have  reached  the  soul  before  it  could 
touch  the  pocket,'  I  says. 

"  I  suppose  Mrs.  Fitzpatrick  had 
grown  tired  hearing  about  hymns, 
for  she  murmured  something  about 
light  opera,  and  heavy  opera. 

" '  I  don't  know  about  operas,  of 
your  sort,  or  their  power  to  move  the 
soul,'  I  says.    '  I  never  to  my  knowl- 


OF  JCTORS  ^ND  MUSIC 


M7 

edge  ever  heard  one,  but  the  mouth 
organ,  with  tho  soul  of  McClosky's 
boy  behind  it,  phiying  The  Old  Fullc.s 
at  Howe,  has  just  compelled    me  to 
put  on  my  bonnet  ami  shawl  and  go 
off  to  see  my  old  father  and  mother. 
Then,'  I   says,  '  I'm    not  a   dancer, 
haven't  been  brought  up  that  way, 
but   when    Bill    (Jilooly   leans    out 
there  against  the  rain-barrel  at  the 
corner  of  the  street,  and  plays  Thr 
Girl  I  Left  Behind  Me  on  hisjew's- 
harp,  I  declare  I  do  step  faster  around 
my  garden,  I  know  I  do.     And  when 
my  little  musical  clock  strikes  off 
Soldiers  of  The  Queen,  woman  and  all 
as  I  am,  I  feel  as  if  I  could  shoulder 
a  musket,  and  go  out  to  fight  the 
Zulus,  or  Soudanese,  or  any  other 
turbulent  man-eating  tribe  or  people 
that  needs  to  be  quelled. 


1+8       THE  yiLUGE  ARTIST 


"'Every  summer,'  I  says,  'an 
Italian  woman,  wearing  a  little  em- 
broidered shawl  on  her  head  instead 
of  a  hat  or  a  bonnet,  comes  'round 
through  the  village  with  a  hand- 
organ,  and  plays,  Homcy  Sircct  Home, 
and  The  Lust  Roxe  flf  Simracr,  and 
I'm  not  ashamed  to  own  that  they 
pull  hard  on  my  heart-strings  every 
time  I  hear  them,  and  set  me  off 
longing  for  something — more  love, 
or  beauty,  or  perfection  of  some  sort, 
than  I  suppose  this  old  world  will 
ever  grow  to  in  my  time.' 

" '  I  presume,'  suys  Mrs.  Fitz- 
patrick,  looking  like  one  in  a  dream, 
'  that  you  don't  ever  have  even  the 
Hallelujah  Chorus  here  in  the  village.' 
"  '  We  have  here  in  the  village,'  I 
says,  '  our  own  peculiar  choruses, 
oratorios,  operas,  to  which  the  heart 


m 


WfitK 


OF  ACTORS  AND  MVSIC 


"49 


of  the  listener  can  give  any  name  he 
or  she  chooses. 

"  '  Some  spring  morning,  when  the 
first  early  blossoms  ai)pcar,  you  wake 
to  find  the  galleries  of  the  fruit  trees 
filled  with  millions  of  bees,  all  unit- 
ing in  a  chorus,  as  deserving  of  the 
name  Hallelujah  Chorus  as  any  other, 
to  my  way  of  thinking,'  I  says. 

"  '  I  do  not  myself  despise  any  of 
God's  choristers,'  I  says ; '  at  the  first 
peep  of  dawn  my  old  rooster  hails 
the  day  with  a  cheerful  salute; 
my  neighbor's  rooster  responds,  and 
in  a  few  seconds  a  dozen  roosters  are 
sending  in  their  responses.  My  in- 
terpretation of  them  is  :  "  Throw  off 
regrets  !  "  "  Begin  afresh  !  "  "  An- 
other day!"  "Another  day!"  I 
call  this  a  village  chorus,  you  could 
not  hear  it  in  the  city,  and  on  the 


S--»"¥' 


ISO        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

farm  there  are  not  enough  of  roosters 
to  make  a  choir. 

"  '  Then,'  I  says,  '  the  spring  ora- 
torio of  the  frogs,  if  not  ours  ex- 
clusively, is  not  ever  heard  in  the 
city.  The  operas  oC  the  harvest  bee, 
the  katydid,  and  the  grasshopper,  we 
share  with  the  farmer,  but  not  with 
the  city  people. 

"  '  There  are  times  when  it  seems 
to  me,'  I  says, '  that  the  whole  world, 
and  all  the  worlds  around  it  are 
swinging  to  music.  But  of  course  I 
know  that  is  when  the  harp  of  my 
spirit  is  strung  to  chord  with  tha 
tune  and  the  time  in  which  God  is 
running  His  world.' " 


^ 


I   I 


XI 


THE    LITTLE    fVORLD    OF 
THE  POST-OFFICE 

"  Sometimes  from  tliis  simple  world  to  look  out 
We  see,  not  Kreed  and  spite  and  evil  all 
In  that  great  world,  where  to  the  cynic's  donbt 

Bn?,  S„HH  f  '» '-""'I/"''  happy  niay  befall  ; 
But  .1  world  tenderer  far,  and  fair  to  see 

p„.  ♦1;'?^.°'  '.'"■f',»"'l  sympathy  so  swert, 
tor  that  It  IS  in  fabric  such  as  we 
Made  tip  of  the.^i    uur  little  worlds,  complete." 

HERE  are  worlds 
within  worlds,  and 
worlds  within 
worlds,  millions  of 
them,"  said  my  en- 
tertainer, one  day  we  were  seated  in 
her  snug  sitting-room,  the  rain  hav- 
ing driven  us  in  from  her  garden. 
"  I  often  think  p'rhaps  the  angels  are 
looking  at  us  from  their  distance, 
just  as  we  look  at  the  heavenly 
'5' 


152       THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


bodies,  and  see  us  running  our  little 
courses,  revolving  'round  each  other, 
and— sometimes,"  she  added  sadly, 
"here  and  there,  one  shooting  off 
from  his  or  her  appointed  way,  like 
a  falling*  star. 

"  Now  here's  our  village  post-office, 
it's  a  little  world  of  its  own,  with 
tragedy  and  comedy  (1  picked  those 
two  words  up  from  Mrs.  Fitzpatrick) 
enough,  for  those  who  have  eyes  to 
see  and  hearts  to  feel. 

"Did  you  notice  that  the  front 
step  is  nearly  worn  through  from  the 
thousand  feet  that  have  pressed  it ; 
fleet  feet  and  feeble  feet,  all  coming 
to  that  post-office  in  search  of  happi- 
ness,—or  satisfaction  for  the  moment 
at  least.  When  I  think  of  the  writ- 
ten thoughts  that  have  flitted  out  to 
thu    world    through   that   slot,   and 


I 


THE  LITTLE  WORLD 


'53 

flitted  into  the  village  through  that 
wicket,  and  the  Hutterings  and  sink- 
ings of  heart,  the  smiles  and  the 
tears  that  these  thoughts  have  pro- 
duced, the  old  post-office,  with  the 
foot-worn  floor,  and  tlie  yellow  plas- 
ter falling  off"  its  walls,  becomes  a 
shrine — a  box  in  which  sacred  things 
are  kept. 

"  Regularly  every  Saturday  night 
for  years  Mrs.  Brown   used  to  come 
to  look  for  a  letter  from  her  son,  Asa, 
who  had  gone  off"  to  Manitoba.     She 
came  from  the  far  side  of  the  village, 
where  there  was   no  sidewalk,  bat- 
tling often  against  wind  and   rain. 
When    I   shut   my  eyes   and  think 
about  it,  I  can  see  that  old  woman 
standing  there  in  the  corner  of  the 
office  where  she  could  watch  the  sort- 
ing of  the  mail.     She  was  all  in  a 


154        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


nervous  shiver,  seems  as  if  she  never 
could  calm  herself,  or  quiet  the  great 
throbs  of  her  heart  that  made  her 
body  tremble.     When  the  mail  was 
all  given  out,  and  she  knew  without 
a  doubt  that  there  was  no  letter  for 
her  from  her  boy,  she  would  draw 
her  old  gray  shawl  tighter  around 
her  thin  shoulders,  and  creep  out  of 
the  post-office,  the  wrinkles  in  her 
face  deepening,  and  her  poor  back 
becoming  more  stooped.     If  I  would 
do  any  preaching  to  boys  at  all,  I 
would  say,  '  Don't  forget  to  write  to 
the  old   folks   at   home.'     Probably 
that  careless  boy  could  have  had  a 
letter  for  her  there  every  Saturday 
night  just  as  well  as  not,  and  com- 
forted the  poor  old  mother. 

"A  fine  contrast  Squire   Murray 
made  when  he  received  a  letter  from 


\% 


A\ 


THE  LITTLE  WORLD 


his  young  daughter,  Kose,  who  was 
away  at  a  girl's  school.     Rose  used 
to  write  freely  to  her  father,  so  her 
mother  said,  and  tell  him  all   her 
schoolgirl  pranks.     The  Squire  was 
very  proper,  and  I  verily  believe  if 
he  had  heard  of  any  other  girl  doing 
all  that  Rose  said  she  did,  he  would 
have   thought  it  very  foolish.     But 
to  get  all  these  confidences  in  a  letter 
from  his  own  little  Rose  brought  a 
pleased  gleam  into  his  eye,  and  he 
walked  out  of  that  post-office  looking 
ten  years  younger  for  having  read 
that  giddy  letter  from  a  schoolgirl. 

"Sometimes  I  used  to  think  that 
the  httle  office  room  was  wrapped  in 
an  atmosphere  of  love,  sometimes  of 
gnef,  and,  perhaps,  when  there  was 
any  little  bickering  going  on  in  the 
village,  such  as  election  times,  when 


iS6       THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

the  greft  newspapers  from  the  city 
were  coming  through,  full  of  nasty 
speeches  on  each  side,  one  about  the 
other,  and  half  of  us  here  in  the  vil- 
lage favoured  one  party,  and  half  the 
other  it  came  near  being  an  atmos- 
phere of  hate — it  was  whispered  that 
a  package  of  election  '  boodle  '  (ugly 
word,  isn't  it?)  came  through  that 
office  once,  but  that's  not  for  a  woman 
to  know. 

"  Perhaps  each  one  of  us  had  an 
atmosphere  of  our  own,  and  if  we 
carried  love,  or  grief,  or  hate  into 
that  little  office  we  imagined  the 
room  was  full  of  it.  I  am  sure  when 
Becky  Thorn  used  to  get  the  flirta- 
tious notes  from  the  summer  boarder 
that  wore  the  white  shoes,  the  room, 
to  her — probably  the  whole  world 
swam  in  a  sea  of  silliness.     And  I 


M9^.m 


THE  LITTLE  IVORLD        ,57 

haven't  a  doubt  when  old  Abraham 
Simpson  came  to  drop  the  letter  in- 
structing the  police  of  New  York  to 
send  home  the  body  of  his  only  son, 
who  had  been  shot  in  a  (!runken 
row  in  that  city,  the  little  post-office 
was  filled  with  an  atmosphere  of 
woe. 

"  When  Jimmy  Gray  received  the 
letter  telling  him  that  his  first  poem 
was  accepted  by  a  publisher,  he  said 
that  the  floor  of  the  office  rose  up, 
and  the  walls  and  windows  danced. 
And  when  poor  Kate  Bennet  read 
the  letter  containing  the  sad  intelli- 
gence that  her  boy-lover  had  died  of 
a  fever  out  in  South  Africa,  she  said 
that  the  floor  seemed  to  give  away, 
and  the  whole  building  to  reel  and 
crash  about  her. 

"Women  got  their  love  letters— 


158        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


ii 


li 


for  I  hold  that  a  letter  is  of  small 
account  to  a  woman  that  has  not 
love  of  some  sort  in  it — and  men  got 
their  business  letters  through  that 
old  wicket. 

"  There  was  Skinflint  Carver  (Skin- 
flint was  a  nickname  of  course,  given 
him  by  the  village)  who  was  in  the 
office  every  day  watching  for  some 
one  of  his  numerous  business  letters, 
or  his  daily  newspaper.  He  owned 
a  sawmill  and  a  fast  horse,  and  spec- 
ulated here,  there  and  everywhere, 
playing  sharp  tricks.  He  was  get- 
ting rich — in  money.  Poor  Skin- 
flint, I  believe  it  gave  him  more 
concern  what  the  daily  newspapers 
were  printing  about  the  state  of  the 
markets,  than  what  the  recording 
angel  was  writing  down  about  him- 
self    His  eyes  had  grown  glittering 


I 


THE  LITTLE  WORLD        ,59 


and  hard,  I  always  imagined  that 
his  whole  body  looked  hard  and  I 
often  found  myself  wondering— when 
younger  than  I  am  now— as  I  looked 
at  him  standing  there  in  the  post- 
office  waiting  for  his  mail,  whether 
he  would  ring  hard  like  a  metal 
dollar  if  he  were  struck. 

"Farmers  came  once  a  week  for 
their  weekly  newspaper,  and  the  oc- 
casional letter  that  drifted  their  way. 
"  It  was  on  a  drear  day  in  autumn 
that  I  went  into  the  post-office  and 
found  Hiram  Jones,  a  young  farmer, 
with  a  broad  crape  band  around  his 
hat,  and  three  or  four  dozen  envel- 
opes, with  a  deep  black  border,  spread 
out  on  the  ledge  befor     .im.     He  was 
putting  a   one-cent  stamp  on  each 
envelope.     I    knew  without    being 
told   that   he  was  sending  out  the 


fl   i 


I' ' 


i6o       THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

notices  of  his  father's  death  to  all 
the  (rid  friends.  He  looked  lone- 
some, and  I  went  over  and  helped 
him  lick  the  stamps  and  paste  them 
on  the  envelopes.  His  brown  large- 
featured  face  was  softened  by  sorrow, 
but  there  were  deeps  in  his  eyes,  and 
his  mouth  was  shut  firm  and  tight; 
and  I  knew  that  he  was  trying  to 
stand  up  straight  under  his  father's 
mantle,  which  had  now  fallen  upon 
his  young  shoulders. 

"  Letters  come  in  from  north,  south, 
east,  west,  from  the  hot  climate  and 
the  cold  climate.  Kate  Bennet  sent 
her  letters  from  the  mission  fields 
of  hot  Africa,  and  Asa  Brown  wrote 
home  from  Manitoba — which  is  cold 
enough  for  anybody.  David  Mc- 
Kenzie,  here  in  the  village,  sent  his 
letters  regularly  to  the  old  home  in 


THE  LITTLE  WORLD        ,6, 

Scotland   and  received   letters  back 

smelling  of  heather;  and  Mary  Mc- 
Closky  looked  regularly  for  her  let- 
ters  from   'across   the  say,'  which 
always  inclosed  a  sprig  of  shamrock. 
"Then  I  remember  very  well  the 
white  frightened  face  of  a  mother 
who  had  a  letter  telling  her  that 
her  boy  was  wounded   in  the  war. 
And   the   happy  smile   of  another 
mother  by  her  side  whose  son  had 
just  sent  her  home  his  first  month's 
wages. 

"Dear,  dear,  what  a  checquered 
game  life  seems  to  us  who  cannot 
see  the  end;  if  we  did  not  know 
that  there  was  One  handling  the 
pawns  (that's  what  they  call  the 
men  in  the  game  of  choss,  Mrs.  Fitz- 
patrick  says)  pushing  them  in  here 
and  out  there,  so  as  to  bring  the 


ifl 


162        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

game  out  at  lost  to  the  greiit(;at  ail- 
vantage  to  all,  we'd  bo  terribly  dis- 
couraged, wouldn't  we? 

"  Miss  Grimshaw  was  at  the  post- 
office  every  evening,. for  years  I  be- 
lieve, and  it  would  seem  as  if  she 
were  always  looking  for  samples  of 
dry  goods  from  the  great  city  stores. 
Poor  girl  I  she  thought  too  much 
about  dress,  and  her  face  looked  like 
it.  Then  Kirsty  McAlister  came 
many  and  many  an  evening,  hoping 
for  a  letter  from  her  brothers — who 
were  off  in  the  city  and  too  busy  to 
write  home  letters — and  all  of  us  who 
looked  into  her  face  knew  that  she 
had  caught  God's  secret. 

"Then  the  boys  came  to  see  the 
girls,  and  the  girls  came  to  see  the 
boys  ;  and  a  number  thronged  'round 
there  every  evening  from  no  reason 


'i.m. 


THE  LITTLE  IVORLD        ,63 


at  all-except  from  habit,  or  because 
they  had  nothing  else  to  do.  Ben 
Leith  never  failed  to  he  ihero,  and  I 
never  saw  him  get  a  lettf, 

"Boxes  of  weddi!.-   lif.wrrs,  ai  <( 
boxes  of  funeral  .;  ,>v.,-i.,  Con^  tl,« 
city  greenhouses,   have    hod,    u(>t'n 
handed  out  througl-.  Miar  oid  u'icket, 
and  sometimes  both  have  -naue  me 
sad,  and  sometimes  botii  lua  ■  mailo 
me  happy.     I  am  sure  it  is  a  sin  to 
be  anything  else  than  happy  when 
some  souls  snap  their  bonds  and  fly 
away  from  their  trials  and  sufferings 
here,  and  go  on  to  where  sorrow  and 
sighing  have  passed  away.     I  was 
bappy  when  I  saw  the  funeral  wreath 
of  poor  rheumatic  eighty-year  old 
Jacob  Hansel,  it  seemed  to  me  like 
his  crowning  wreath  ;  and  I  was  sad 
when  I  saw  the  white  roses  for  the 


i  f-f! 


164        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


r 


wedding  of  nineteen  year  old  Nettie 
Darsh,  when  she  married  the  rich 

old  man  of  sixty Her  relations 

made  the  match. 

"There  are  scenes — dramas  Mrs. 
Fitzpatrick  calls  'em — that  are  open 
to  the  gaze  of  everybody,  and  there 
are  little  private  dramas  which  no 
one  knows  anything  about  but  one- 
self—and p'rhaps  another.     There's 
one  in  connection  with  that  old  post- 
olfice  which  no  one  saw  but  Emeline 
Delmer    and   nij  oelf— Emeline  was 
my    greatest    friend    and    told    me 
everything.     It  was  when  Joe  North 
wrote  her  the  letter  asking  her  to  be 
his  wife.     She   answered   the   letter 
the  same  day,  accepting  his  proposal. 
But,  goodness!  after  she  had  the  letter 
posted  she  was  sorry,  or  thought  she 
was.    She  began  to  think  what  a 


THE  LITTLE  WORLD        ,6j 

serious  thing  marriage  is,  and  her 
fears  and  forebodings  almost  suffo- 
cated her.     She  seemed  to  forget  all 
about  Joe,  and  half  an  hour  after 
she  had  dropped  the  letter  into  the 
slot  she  went  back  to  the  post-office 
and  asked   to  have  it  again.     But 
the  postmaster  said  it  was  against 
the  law  to  return  it,  and  he  would 
not  let  her  have  it.    So  Joe  got  the 
letter   next  day.     Do  you  suppose 
he'd  let  her  back   out  after  that? 
But  Emeline  really  loved  Joe,  and  it 
turned  out  all  right  in  the  end     I 
reckon  the  Bible  is  just  as  correct 
when   it  says  'perfect   love  casteth 
out  all  fear 'as  in  all  the  rest  of  its 
sayings. 

"  Valentine's  day  has  always  been 
a  great  day  in  our  office;  hundreds, 
and    hundreds    of   valentines   have 


1 66       THE  FILL  AGE  ARTIST 

passed  through  that  old  wicket. 
Comic  valentines,  in  which  we  had 
the  chance  to  give  a  hint,  or  press 
home  a  joke,  honourably  without 
signing  our  own  name;  and  sweet, 
tender  valentines,  in  which  the  shy 
lad  dared  in  the  words  of  the  poet 
to  hint  at  his  own  heart's  yearnings. 
I  have  my  own  old  first  valentine 
yet ;  it  runs  something  like  this  : 


|i1 


'  Nor  gold,  nor  splendour,  satisfies 
The  heart  that  yearns  for  love, 
I  conut  one  kind  look  front  thine  eyes 
All  earthly  wealth  above.' 

-But  I  suppose  valentines  are 


the  same  to-day  that  they  were  forty 
years  ago.  Strange  what  varioufi 
ways  people  have  for  Hearcbinjr  aft«r 
the  greatest  thing  in  the  world. 
That  valentine  of  mine  came  from 
Jonathan — but  p'rhapu  it's  not  £ur 


THE  LITTLE  ff^ORLD        ,67 


Poor    Jona- 


to    mention    names, 
than ! 

"  Well  I  have  only  given  you  a 
snatch  here  and  there  of  all  that  has 
happened  in  our  old  post-office.     As 
I  said  before,  there  are  worlds  within 
worlds,    each    one  of   us  who  has 
walked  into  that  post-office  has  been 
a  little  world  in  himself     The  most 
curious  world  of  the  whole  lot,  and 
the  one  hardest  to  be  understood,  is 
the  world  ea.h  ouv  of  us  carries  in 
his  own  bosom," 


t 


I  -i 


t<i 


XII 

"  JN  OLD  SETTLER  " 

•As  one  who  walking  in  a  forest  sees 
A  lovely  landufpo  through  the  partwl  trees, 
Then  sees  it  not,  for  Ijoafthx  that  intervene; 
Or,  iiH  we  nee  the  moon  Hometiniefl  reveal'd 
Through  drifting  clouds,  and  then  aj^aiu  couceal'd, 
So  I  behold  the  scene." 

OU  liavt' seen  that  old 
house  that  stands  at 
the  outskirts  of 
the  village?"  in- 
quired Mrs.  Slade. 
"  That's  an  old  settler,  the  oldest  in 
the  village,  but  built  of  fine  cedar 
logs,  no  give  'way  to  them." 

Following  the  direction  of  her 
gaze,  I  saw  in  the  distance  an  old 
log  house  standing  in  a  field,  with  a 
few  gnarled,  twisted  plum-trees  in 
front  of  it. 

i68 


"  ^N  OLD  SETTLER  "         ,69 


"No  one  has  lived  in  the  house  for 
years,"   she   continued;   -'the  roof's 
sinking  in  with  age,  and  'twouldn't 
bo  safe  to  st.p  on  the  floor,  but  I 
never   look    there  without  seeing  a 
lot  of  pi,.tures-the  life-pietures  of 
tl.at  old  house.     Prhaps  v.m  n.ay  see 
something dillerentwiti,  your niiiHl's 
eye,  it's   not  gi    .,1  to  two  of  us  to 
see  exactly  the  same,  but  I  see  the 
man   who  built  that  ho.^.e  coming 
through    the   woo.ls   on   an    Indian 
trail  in  the  early  days  of  the  country. 
There  was  only  one  horse,  and  his 
wife  rode-they  were  not  long  mar- 
ned-wliilo  ho  walked  by  her  side 
carrying    a    gun.     He   was   on    the 
lookout  all  the  way  along  for  bears 
wolves,   rattlesnakes,  or  perhaj^.  an 
ugly  Indian. 
"  When  he  reached  the  spot  of  land 


170 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


\ 


h 


the  govHinment  had  allotted  to  him, 
he,  with  the  help  of  a  neighbour  or 
two,  cut  down  a  few  trees,  and  built 
their  log  house.    One  room  the  first 
year  or  two,  except  when   visitors 
came,  then  some  gray  blankets  were 
hung    up    for     partitions.     Simple 
enough,  but,  within  the  four  walls  of 
that  little  house  the  greatest  events 
of  life  have   taken   place.     All   the 
emotions  have  lived  there  turn  about 
in  spells,  joy  and  sorrow,  peace  and 
pain,  have  all  reigned  at  times  under 
those  cedar  shingles.     Life  and  death 
have  wrestled  there,  sometimes  one 
victorious,     sometimes     the     other. 
Over  that  old  pine  floor  have  tripped 
feet  as  light  as  love  can  make  them, 
and  leaden  as  sorrow  could  load  em. 
Out  through  the  panes  of  those  old 
windows, — you've  noticed  how  small 


"  AN  OLD  SETTLER  • 


171 


the  panes  are?— have  looked  eyes  of 
faith  shining  like  heaven's  own  stars, 
and  again  eyes  blurred  with  the  mist 
of  doubt,  and  the  pain  of  disappoint- 
ment. 

"  Baby  fingers  have  made  marks 
on   those   old   plastered   walls,   and 
baby    feet    have    helped   wear    the 
crevices  in  the  floor.     On  that  floor 
I  see  the  farmer  kneeling  with  his 
little  group  at  family  prayer;  the 
mother  with  her  face  buried  in  her 
hand,  trying  despite  her  many  cares 
to  keep  her  mind  on  her  devotions ; 
the  youngsters,  their  heads  together 
whispering,  perhaps  giggling,  while 
the  father,  with  a  glow  on  his  up- 
turned face,  which  sometimes  made 
the  children  grow  quiet  to  stare  at 
him,  asked  God's  blessing  on  them 
all. 


n 


m 


172 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


I 


III';  ■ 


"  Then  comes  night,  the  children 
are  asleep,  the  wolves  are  howling 
outdoors,  and  an  occasional  fox 
barkr  The  farmer  is  reading  a 
nr  w^paper,  which  came  around  the 
gxjceries  from  the  nearest  town,  by 
the  light  of  the  tallow  dip,  and  his 
wife  listens,  while  she  knite  on  one 
of  his  strong  gray  socks. 

"  Those  old  plum-trees  in  front  of 
the  house  are  in  my  picture  too ;  full 
of  white  blossoms  in  the  spring,  and 
full  of  red  plums  in  the  fall.  The 
birds,  when  they  come  back  in  spring 
from  foreign  parts,  perch  in  their 
branches  and  sing,  '  Tim  is  my  o?wi, 
my  native  land,'  the  children  play 
under  them,  and  the  farmer  and  his 
hired  man  rest  in  spells,  after  dinner 
on  hot  days,  in  the  {rrat*»ful  patch  of 
deep  soft  shade  which  they  cast  over 


"  AN  OLD  SETTLER  " 


'73 


the  grass.  Live-forever,  rosemary, 
and  southernwood  grow  on  either 
side  of  the  front  door-step,  contend- 
ing with  the  grass  for  right-of-way, 
and  sweetening  the  air  for  yards 
around  them.  Under  the  large  flat 
stone  which  forms  the  first  step,  a 
cricket  lives  and  sings,  cheerfully  or 
sadly,  according  as  your  listening 
heart  will  have  it. 

"  By  and  by,  the  daughter  leaves 
for  a  home  of  her  own.  The  court- 
ing has  been  done  before  the  wide 
fireplace  winter  evenings,  and  out 
on  a  bench  at  the  front  of  the  housr 
summer  evenings.  But  the  visions 
of  the  future  could  not  have  been 
brighter  in  two  hearts  and  two  heads  if 
they  had  been  roofed  over  by  a  palace. 
"  Then  the  boy  gets  married  and 
brings  home  his  wife.     And  the  old 


174       THE  VI LUGE  ARTIST 

couple  settle  down,  leave  the  care  to 
the  younger  people,  and  sit  in  two 
easy  rush-bottomed  chairs  out  in 
front  of  the  house,  warming  them- 
selves in  the  sun,  and  talking  about 
the  good  old  times  past  and  gone. 
Talking  about  their  first  baby,  whose 
grave  is  in  the  corner  of  one  of  the 
fields ;  and  they  feel  quite  sure  that 
that  child  was  the  fairest  and  bright- 
est that  was  given  them. 

"  In  time  the  old  man  and  woman 
move  on  to  seek  a  city  out  of  sight, 
and  two  graves  are  made  beside  the 
baby's  in  the  lot  at  the  corner  of  the 
field,  inclosed  by  a  white  wooden 
paling. 

"The  son  makes  money  on  the 
land  his  father  had  cleared,  builds 
another  house  and  moves  away  from 
the  old  one. 


"  AN  OLD  SETTLER  ' 


"Years    after   that   I   see   tramps 
making  the  old  empty  house  u  head- 
quarters   to  sh,ep  in  nights.     And 
'luring   the  long  dark   hours  they 
hear  the  soft  creaking  of  a  rocking- 
chair,  and  hear  a  mother  singing  a 
hymn  to  her  babe.     They  hear  the 
patter  of  children's  feet,  and  their 
sunny    laughter.     The    very    walls 
whisper  of  good  and  beautiful  things 
they  had  known  themselves  in  by- 
gone days.     A  loving  presence  se..ns 
to  draw  the  hot  rebellious  thoughts 
from  their  hearts,  and  wipe  the  oaths 
from  their  lips.     And  they  go  out  on 
their  next  day'.,   tramp,   unwashed 
and  unkempt,  but  better  men  from 
.having  spent  the  night  among  the 
influences  of  the  old  settler:' 


MldOCOrV  aiSOlUTION  tbt  ch*«t 

(ANSI  ond  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


A  APPLIED  IIVMGE     In 

^E"-  '6^-3  C(»t   Main   Street 

BTf  Rochester.   New  Yorh         U609       USA 

r^SS  (716)   482  -  0300  -  Phone 

^B  (716)   288-5ge9-Fax 


XIII 
WINTER  PLEASURES 

..  Yonr  culture  m.y  be  measured  b,  the  number  of 
things  you  enjoy." 

jINTER  time  is  very 
interesting  here  in 
the    village,"    said 
Mrs.  Slade  to  me  in 
^^    ,  a    reproving   tone, 

one  November  day  she  dropped  into 
my  summer  cottage  and  found  me 
packing  to  return  to  the  city.  "Pity 
you  can't  stay  with  us;  living  here 

only  in  summer  times  you  see  but 
half  our  enjoyments.    Pleasure  comes 
to  us  here  of  her  own  accord ;  we  never 
have  to  run  about  to  catch  her." 
"What  do  you  find  in  the  village 

176 


IVINTER  PLEASURES  ,77 
in  winter  time  that  makes  life  worth 
living? "I  asked,  dropping  into  a 
rocker  to  rest  my  tired  back  that  had 
stooped  for  an  hour  over  a  trunk. 

"That's  just  the  question  Mrs. 
Fitzpatrick  asked  me,"  she  returned 
smiling  absently,  as  if  some  shade' 
of  the  past  had  risen  up  and  was 
greeting  her.  "  You  know  living  in 
the  city  a  few  years  had  blunted  her 
fine  senses." 

Without   further  solicitation  she 
began : 

"  It  was  snowing,  great  large  soft 
flakes,  and  it  had  snowed  about  so 
all  night,  so  that  there  was  not  a 
track  to  be  seen.  Soon  after  break- 
fast, when  I  had  the  dishes  washed 
up,  I  drew  a  pair  of  Simon's  socks 
over  my  shoes  and  waded  over  to  see 
Mrs.  Fitzpatrick.     I  knew  it  was  in 


,78       THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


'■ 


the  winter  time  she  buried  Fitz- 
patrick  off  there  in  that  city  cemetry, 
and  I  thought  perhaps  the  still  winter 
day— for  Nature  can  say  more  with 
silence  than  most  people  can  with 
words— and  the  coming  of  the  heav- 
enly host  might  make  her  a  bit  lone- 
some to  be  off  with  him. 

" '  It  is  puch  a  beautiful  day,'  I 
panted  as  I  reached  her  door.  '  I 
just  couldn't  stay  in  the  house.' 

"  '  Beautiful ! '  she  says.    '  This  is 

2,  terrible  snow-storm  I    The  grocer's 

boy  has  been  over  and  told  me  that 

it  has  done  no  end  of  mischief:  the 

trains  are  blocked  so  they  can't  run, 

the  telegraph  lines  won't  work,  and 

even  our  milkman  is  unable  to  get 

in  from  the  country  to  bring  us  oui 

milk.    There'll  be  great  delays,'  she 

says,  'with  freight,  important  mes- 


-  I 


IVINTER  PLEASURES         ,79 


sages  can't  be  sent  through  on  the 
wires,  and  no  end  of  troublu.' 

What  a  mercy,'  I  says, '  that  God 
sometimes  stretclies  out  His  hnnd  and 
stops  the  hurrying  to  and  fro  of  man  ; 
what  with  rushing  trains,  and  flash' 
ing  telegrams,  and  driving  business 
he'd  never,  never  in  tlie  world  see 
any  of  the  beautiful  around  him.' 

Well,  he  hasn't  much  to  see  to- 
day,' says  she,  shutting  the  door 
against  the  snow-storm  ;  '  everything 
is  snowed  in.' 

Those  gre-  trhite  flake.s,'  I  says, 
'  coming  down  io  noiseless,  so  pure' 
make  me  think  of  the  angelic  host,' 
and  all  the  world  seems  calmed  by 
their  very  coming.  Did  you  ever 
notice,'  I  says,  '  how  still  the  world 
gets  when  the  snow  angels  are  flut- 
tering down  in  thousands  ?    Perhaps 


. 


,8o        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST^ 

it  may  be  my  imagination,  but  I 
never  remember  hearing  any  one 
talking  very  loud  or  angry  at  such  a 
time,  and  I've  noticed  even  the  crab- 
bedest  people  in  the  village  almost 

gentle.' 

"Mrs.    Fitzpatrick    glanced    out 
through  the  window  at  the  falling 

snow. 

" '  When  I  look  out,'  I  says, '  and 
see    everything    covered   with    that 
pure  whiteness,  the  frozen  mud  and 
old  wagon  ruts,  the  unpainted  fences, 
and  broken  sidewalks,  the  fields,  and 
all   the  trees   and   bushes,  I   think 
everything     in     Nature's     mighty 
temple  is  worshipping  the  Lord  m 
the  beauty  of  holiness.     And  d'    r, 
dear,  when  the  sun  comes  out  and 
lights  it  all  up,  setting  aflame  every 
hanging  flake  and  fringe  of  icicles,  I 


lyiNTER  PLEASURES         ,8, 


can  think  of  notJiing  but  the  Nn„ 
■fcnmikm  coining  down  from  God  out 
of  heaven,  jirejmred  as  a  bride  adorned 
for    her    hmband.     Then    on    clear 
wliite  nights  when   the  moon  and 
the  stars  shine  down,  throwing  upon 
the  silvery  ground  the  shadows  of 
the  trees,  with  their  great  lace-work 
of  branches,  I  can  do  nothing  but 
fall  back  on  Revelations  again,  The 
tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men',  can 
think  of  nothing  else.     Somehow  I 
says,  '  the  pure  white  world  opens  a 
door  to  an  inner  room  in  your  soul 
where  no  summer  beauty  has  ever 
entered.' 

"  Airs.  Fitzpatrick  looked  wistfully 
out  on  the  falling  snow  again. 

" '  If  ever  you  should  happen  to 
feel  all  hemmed  in  during  winter 
time,'   I    says,    'roads   blocked   and 


All 


,82  THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 
fences  covered,  all  you've  got  to  do  is 
lookupintotheskie«,^vithnoend 
to  their  outreachinK^  to  know  that 
you  have  plenty  of  room. 

" '  Then,'  I  says,  '  on  bleak  days, 
when  the  southeast  wind  has  lifted 
the  white  mantle  from  the  shoulders  ■ 
of  earth,  and  is  moaning  'round  cor- 
ners it  se^ms  as  if  Nature  was  feeling 
the  sin  of  the  world;  and  the  trees 

having  renounced  the  pomps  and 
vanities  of  summer,  are,  as  the  poet 
says,  stretching  long  bare  arms  to 
heaven  like  patriarchs  in  prayer. 

'"From  the  trees,'  I  says,  'one 
naturally  turns  to  the  birds,  and  1 
V onder  whether  aown  in  the  south- 
ern swamps  they  are  praising  God 
with  the  same  old  choruses  we  used 
to  listen  to  up  here. 

"  '  Then  winter  time,'  I  says,  '  puts 


IVINTER  PLEASURES         ,83 

one   thinking  of   tlio   millions  and 
millions  of  things  with  the  sap  of 
life  in  them,  all  happed  up  under 
ground,  brooded  over  by  the  wings 
of  the  snow  angel ;  with  ear  set    it 
seems,  listening  for  the  resurrection 
trump  of  Spring.     The  roots  of  the 
bright  red  roses,  the  round  little  cro- 
cus bulbs,  the   sacred   heart  of  the 
Easter  lily,  and  who  can  count  how 
many    more?    And    all    the    great 
families  of  things  in  which  the  rod 
blood  seems  to  have  gone  to  sleep  in 
their  veins,  as  it  were,  rolled  into 
some  snug  corner  unti'  a  voice  w-e 
never   hear   at   all,   calls   them   out 
again.     How  much   those  creatures 
see  and  hear  that  we  know  nothing 
about  I '  I  says.    '  One  could  spend  a 
lifetime    thinking  about   it.     What 
dreams  have  they  during  their  long 


IB 


,84       THE  y ILL  AGE  ARTIST 
sleep?     I  wonder  whether  like  our- 
selves they  have  the  fun  of  plunning 
how  they'll  spend  the  following  sum- 
mers.    Myl'    I    says,   'it  does  me 
good  to  think  of  all  those  creatures 
of  God,  unblotted  by  disobedience, 
lying  ^y  to  *'*"^*'  ^°^^^^  '"  spring  to 
give  new  interest  to  the  world.    I 
don't  knotv,'  I  says, '  I  wouldn't  like 
a  preacher   to   hear   ine,  he   might 
think  I  wasn't  orthodox,  but  I  like 
to  believe  all  those  poor  things  go  on 
to  somewhere,  that  their  little  life 
here  is  not  the  whole  of  it.    That  we 
are  going  to  hear  the  canary's  song 
again,  and  the  bobolink's  laugh,  that 
the  sad  note  is  somehow  going  to  be 
struck    from   the   cry  of  the  poor 
hunted  wild  fowl. 

'"Then   winter,'   I   says,   'is   the 
time  I  do  most  of  my  foreign  travei- 


IVWTER  PLEASURES         ,85 

ling.     I  Stay  at  lio    0  in  my  garden 
mostly  during  the  summer  months 
but  in  winter,  when  it  gets  the  least 
bit  monotonous,  I  just  go  off'  South 
among  the  palm-trees  and  the  orange 
groves,   and    have   a   change.     I've 
travelled  a  good  bit,'  I  says,  '  been  to 
every  continent  and   a  good  many 
islands  of  the  sea.     And  I've  done  it 
all  without  leaving  Simon  or  going 
in  body  outside  my  own  door-yard. 
I've  often  thour'    '  I  says,  '  that  I 
uever  could  bear  to  leave  Simon  here 
by  himself  and  go  off  galloping  over 
Europe  or  Palestine,  as  I  hear  some 
women  -Ii.     I  have  heard  th«t  there 
are  women  and  their  daughters  over 
there    across    the    ocean    spending 
money  hand  over  fist,  while  the  poor 
husband  and  father  is  at  home  in 
Ne-    York  or  Chicago  slaving  away 


,86        THE  yiLUGE  ARTIST 


*  1 

1.  i 

1 

■  I 

to    make   it   for   them.      Lonesome, 
isn't  it?     I  never  could  do  that  way 
with  Simon,'  1  says.     '  I  very  often 
had  him  right  in  the  room,  with  his 
Blioes    off,   asleep    in   his   armchair, 
while  I  in  the  rocking-chair  opposite 
to  him  was  oft"  in  thoughts  to  Green- 
land's icy  mountains,  or  Africs  coral 
strand,  or  maybe  up  in  the  moon, 
stepping  from  star  to  star  in  the  milky 
way,  or  travelling  with  some  one  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  in  its  course. 

" '  Even  in  church,'  I  says, '  I  may 
as  well  confess,  when  the  sermon  was 
long,  or  not  over  and  above  inter- 
esting, the  minister  might  mention 
China,  and  instantly  I  would  be 
transported  to  that  curious  country, 
wandering  up  and  down  the  streets 
of  their  cities,  meeting  their  funny 
little  pig-tailed  men,  and  their  small- 


iriNTHR  PLEASURES         ,87 


f<H)ted  women.  T'iun  Td  slip  out  to 
the  rice-fields,  or  among  their  lilies. 
Indeed  I  have  at  times  made  a  Hy- 
ing tour  of  11. ,  world  before  the  close 
of  a  sermon.' 

"Simon    did    not   believe   it   was 
rigi^t    for    me    to    travel    'round   so 
Sundays,"  .she  .said  with   a   reflect- 
ive smile,  dropping  her  narrative  to 
make  the  rem    -k,  "  and  after  that  I 
tried  to  confi..o  my  Sunday  visiting 
to  the  mission  fields.    When  the  ser- 
mon was   dry  enough   to     end   me 
off  travelling  it  always  p  ..  Simon 
asleep." 
She  resumed  her  narrative : 
'"Then  I  might  be  -'n  tiie  kitchen 
making  a  custard  for  supper,'  I  says 
to  Mrs.  Fitzpatrick,  'and  the  grating 
of  the  nutmeg  would  land  me  in 
Africa.     I  would  wander  'round  in 


,88       rUE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


the  jungles,  get  tangled  in  the  tall 
grasses  and  creeping  vines,  admire 
the  flamingoes  and  parrots,  perhaps 
see  a  boa-constrictor  or  a  lion.  I 
would  companion  a  spell  with  Liv- 
ingstone and  Stanley,  and  be  much 
amused  by  various  tribes  of  blacks. 

" '  A  cup  of  good  black  tea,'  I  says, 
'  would  send  me  off  to  India  to  enjoy 
myself  among  the  elephants  and  the 
chimpanzees.' 

"  I  like  this  travelling  'round  alone, 
no  one  to  interfere  with  you— talk 
when  you  want  to  be  silent,  point 
out  evil  when  you  are  seeing  only 
good,  or  spoil  in  any  way  the  vision 
of  your  soul,"  she  added,  looking  to 
me  for  assent. 

Then  she  went  back  to  Mrs.  Fitz- 

pairick. 

" '  There  was  a  farmer,'  I  says, '  who 


WINTER  PLEASURES         189 


came  in  past  our  house  once  a  week 
to  market,  and  he  wore  a  bearskin 
coat,  and  every  time  I  saw  him  he 
sent  me  off,  whether  I  would  or  no, 
to  Russia.    Sometimes  I'd  spend  a 
whole  afternoon  in  Siberia,  wander- 
ing 'round  that  lonesome  place,  and 
neighbouring  with  the  exiles.    Then 
when  I  had  visited  with  those  pris- 
oners, I'd  go  off  to  St.  Helena  and 
other  places  where  people  are  sent 
to  live  alone  for  punishment.    Seems 
kind   of  nice,'  I  says,   'no  matter 
where  you   go,  from  Timbuctoo  to 
the  North  Pole,  you  find  people  that 
are  breathing  the  same  air  as  you, 
the  same  sun  is  shining  on  them  as 
shines  on  you,  they  are  roofed  over 
by  your   blue    sky,   and   the  same 
great  Love  that  is  watching  over  you 
watches  over  them.' 


'J  I 


1,0       THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


"  If  you'll  believe  me,  Mrs.  Fitz- 
patrick  put  her  two  little  soft  hands, 
you  could  most  squeeze  into  nothing, 
into  mine,  and  says  she, '  Mrs.  Slade, 
you've  done  me  more  good  than 
a  hundred  sermons;  you've  given 
me  something  to  think  about  all 
winter.' " 


!•    ' 


^ 


XIV 


A  PICTURE  OF  HOME  LIFE 

'"^"^Ku  'T  5™-n"'y.  an'l  not  care 

vyiiether  the  lov,!  ramies  Uwk  to  us  afain 
Dmnest  seK-forsetfulness,  at  lirat  ' 

A  task,  ami  then  a  tonic,  then  a  need  ■ 
To  greet  with  open  ha.ids  the  best  and  worst 

And  only  tor  another's  woun.l  to  bleed  : 
Th«  IS  to  see  the  beauty  that  God  meant 

Wrapped  round  with  life,  ineffably  content." 

NEVER  did  believe 
in  match-making," 
said  my  interesting 
old    friend    during 
our   last  afternoon 
together.     "I    always   hold   that   if 
there  are  two  souls  with  but  a  single 
thought,   two    hearts    that    beat   as 
one,  they'll   find  it  out  themselves 
quicker  than  anybody  else.     But  it 
would  look  a.s  if  I  had  been  a  party 
to   making   a   match    between   Ben 

«9' 


fe 


(' 


,9j       THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

Leith  and  Jule  Henderson.    '  Provi- 
dence,' 1  says  to  Simon, '  must  have 
used  my  hand  without  my  knowl- 
edge, for  I'm  sure  all  I  said  was  with- 
out any  designs  of  having  part  or 
lot  in  the  matter.     A  few  years  after 
my  talks  with   Ben,  when   he  had 
brightened  up  to  be  as  fine  a  look- 
ing chap  as  the  village  ever  pro- 
duced, and   had   become   the   pro- 
prietor of  the  wool  depot,  he  found 
his  way  out  to  the  farm  where  Jule 
lived.    How  he  managed  it  I  don't 
know ;  love  laughs  at  impossibilities 
is  an  old  saying;  but  the  upshot  of 
it  was,  Jule's  poor  old  dad  died,  and 
in  a  short  time  Ben  broucht  his  girl- 
wife  to  the  village. 

"  They  were  very  happy,  and  it  did 
old  eyes  good  to  see  them  like  two 
birds  b;  -Iding  their  nest.    I  helped 


II- i 


A  PICTURE  OF  HOME  LIFE  193 

Jule    make    her   home  simple  and 
beautiful.     I  advised  her  to  substi- 
tute plants  for  fancy-work,  to  have 
living,   growing,    interesting   things 
for  her  daily  and  hourly  companions. 
'To   watch    one   fern   throw   out  a 
frond,'  I  says,  '  and  open  out  day  by 
day  like  a  spirit  before  your  eyes,  or 
one  lily  bring  forth  its  pure  white 
blossom,  fills  you  with  a  gladness 
V-.^i  all  the  fancy-work  in  the  world, 
hair-wreaths,  or   leather   frames,  or 
berlin-wool    work,    tidies,    sofa-pil- 
I0V.-S,  antimacassars,  cannot  produce. 
Seems  to  me,'  I  says,  '  that  watering 
and  tending  that  fern  or  lily  makes 
you  feel  as  if  you  were  a  co-labourer 
together  with   God   in  creating  the 
beautiful. 

The  best  furniture  in  my  best 
room,'  I   says,  '  are  things  that  Na- 


,94       rUE  VI LUGE  ARTIST  , 

ture   provided  without   money  and 
without  price— great  brown  cat-tails 
mixed  with    long    green   blades   of 
swamp-grass,  plumes  of  ferns,  and 
branches  of  pressed  autumn  leaves. 
And  at  times  during  our  long  win- 
ter, when   I   get   tired   hearing  the 
clamour  of  the  world,  for  there  are 
days  when   you   seem   to  hear   the 
whole  world  with  its  noise  and  un- 
rest,  and    you    feel   oppressed  and 
troubled,  I   go   into   my  best  room 
and  shut  the  d     r,  and  all  the  reeds, 
grasses,  ferns,  and   leaves  speak   to 
me.     The  reeds  whisper  of  streams 
of  water,  in  whose  cheerful  company 
they  have   spent  their  better  days, 
soon  to  be  liberated  from  the  bond- 
age of  winter  by  the  voice  of  the 
south  wind.    The  branches  of  pressed 
leaves   talk   of  the  trees  which  ere 


d 

3. 
1- 

le 
re 
le 
a- 
id 
m 
Is, 
to 
ns 

fiy 

id- 
he 
ied 
ere 


A  PICTURE  OF  HOME  LIFE  igj 

long  would  shake  themselves  and 
laugh  in  the  summer  sunshine.  The 
ferns  tell  the  story  of  deep  green 
woods  and  the  soft  singing  of  birds 
that  beguile  men  of  their  toil.  And,' 
I  says, '  I  go  out  of  my  best  room  feel- 
ing  God  is  on  His  throne,  it's  all 
right  with  the  world.' 

"Jule  dug  up  some  of  the  old 
flower  roots  that  grew  in  the  farm 
garden,  sweet  William  and  bleeding 
heart,    bridal  wreath    and   widow's 
tear,   tiger-lilies    and    peonies,   and 
brought  them  all  to  her  town  gar- 
den.    'Seems  to  me,' she  said,  with 
a  little  sob  in  her  voice,  '  when  I'm 
'tending  these  that  Dad  is  somewhere 
'round.'    Although  she  had  only  a 
bit  of  a  front  yard  she  made  a  bright 
spot  of  it,  like  a  patch  o'  rainbow 
had  got  caught  among  the  green. 


H 
I 


196       THE  yiLLJGE  ARTIST  ^ 

Then  Jule  was  a  pretty  girl  herself, 
and  neat  as  a  pocket,  and  it  was  a 
sightly  picture  Ben  saw  every  even- 
ing when  he  came  home  from  his 
work — Jule,  slender  and  lithe  as  a 
silver  poplar,  working  among  her 
flowers. 

"  But  they  were  only  married  a 
few  months  when  I  noticed  that  a 
clor-1  had  come  over  their  sky ;  Jule 
had  a  minor  sound  in  her  voice 
which  made  me  think  of  the  wind 
just  before  a  rain,  and  Ben  was  silent. 
I  watched  this  little  cloud  for  some 
time,  but  I  said  nothing ;  it's  not  for 
a  third  party  to  meddle  with  matri- 
monial clouds. 

"  Jule  kept  coming  to  my  place  as 
usual,  but  she  was  not  the  same  girl. 
After  awhile  she  could  contain  her- 
self no  longer,  and  she  burst  out  in  a 


A  PICTURE  OF  HOME  LIFE  197 

torrent  of  tears  and  told  me  that  Ben 
was  growing  tired  of  her;  that  now, 
since  he  liad  once  got  her,  he  did  not 
care  for  her  as  he  used  to  care.     '  And 
I  suppose,  Jule,'  I  says,  quietly,  •  2/o«, 
since  you've  once  got  Ivim,  don't  care 
for  him  as  you  once  did.'     '  Oh,  yes, 
I  do,'  gasped  Jule,  'just  as  much— 
more:    '  Do  you  act  like  it,  Jule  ? '  I 
says  kindly.     '  Well,'  said  Jule  turn- 
ing red,  '  he  doesn't  act  as  he  once 
did.'    Then   I  thought  it  a  proper 
time  to  show  her  a  picture  out  of 
my  private  gallery. 

When  Simon  and  I  were  mar- 
ried about  three  months,'  I  says,  •  I 
began  to  notice  that  he  was  growing 
careless.  He  would  sometimes  sit 
down  in  the  only  chair  when  I  was 
standing ;  he  would  walk  in  a  door 
ahead  of  me,  and  often  sat  at  the 


11 

III; 


ri 


,98       THE  VILUGE  ARTIST 


table  thinking  about  something  or 
somebody  else,  and  never  thought  of 
me.  I  was  hurt,  and  I  showed  it. 
Simon  looked  curiously  at  me  flounc- 
ing around  at  first,  then  a  hurt  look 
came  in  his  face,  and  after  that  he 
was  silent  and  sullen. 

" '  Things  went  on  in  this  way  for 
some  time.  I  sad  and  depressed,  be- 
coming more  careless  every  day  about 
my  house  and  my  appearance,  and 
Simon  swaggering  'round  whistling 
as  if  he  did  not  care  a  cent. 

" '  One  day  when  I  was  out  in  my 
garden  planting,  and  transplanting, 
trying  to  arrange  the  flowers  to  lock 
their  bestr-this  was  the  only  comfort 
I  had  now— it  came  to  me,  "  Work  up 
your  own  best  points,  paint  yourself 
happy  in  spite  of  everything,  and 
imagine  yourself  Simon's  old  sweetr 


A  PICTURE  OF  HOME  LIFE  i 


199 


heart    again."     The    idea   took   my 
fancy,  and  I  went  into  the  house  and 
began  to  arrange  everything  as  nice 
as  possible  for  Simon's  coming,  just 
as  I  used  to  do  in   the  old  home 
when  he  was  coming  to  see  me.     I 
picked    flowers    and    put    them  in 
every  corner.     I  spread  the  tea-tablt- 
with  my  prettiest  table-cloth,  and  set 
it  for  this  particular  night  with  my 
best    china    dishes.     A  bouquet  of 
yellow  and  white  flowers  to  match 
my  gold-banded  china  adorned  the 
centre  of  the  table.     When  the  table 
was  set  I  put  on  a  pink  waist  that 
Simon  always  admired.     I  had  not 
been  wearing  it  since  the  coolness 
came  between  us.     I  peeped  in  the 
looking-glass  and  smiled  at  my  re- 
flected  face   there.     I  saw  that  my 
cheeks  had  grown  about  the  colour 


I     ! 


I  ; 


aoo       THE  FILL  AGE  JRTIST 

of  the  pink  waist, — they  had  had 
very  little  colour  in  them  for  some 
time — and  my  eyes  shone  like  two 
stars.     I  was  feeling  happy  already. 

"  '  Everything  was  ready  when 
Simon  camo  home ;  he  glanced  at 
my  pink  waist,  then  at  the  table, 
and  says  he,  "  Who's  your  visitor  ?  " 

"  '  "  I've  no  visitor,"  I  says. 

"  '  He  looked  surprised  for  a  mo- 
ment, but  said  nothing.  But  I 
noticed  him  watching  me  out  of  the 
corner  of  his  eye  while  I  was  putting 
the  toast  and  boiled  eggs  on  the  tea- 
table. 

'"Well  we  sat  down,  he  at  the 
foot,  and  I  at  the  head.  We  had 
been  accustomed  of  late  to  eat  our 
meals  in  silence  mostly,  but  now 
when  I  was  painting  myself,  Simon's 
happy   sweetheart,  I   could   not  do 


inr 


Jl  t'lCTURE  OF  HOME  LIFE  201 


that  any  longer ;  so  I  began  to  tell 
him  the  little  happenings  of  the 
day.  I  saw  a  surprised,  questioning 
look  in  his  eyes,  but  I  kept  on. 

Simon,"  I  says,  just  as  if  there 

never  had  been  any  cloud  between 
"8,  "you  ought  to  have  seen  those 
two  liitle  Cox  boys  this  afternoon ; 
they  came  'lound  here  looking  up 
into  the  trees.     I  saw  they  had  some- 
thing   in    their  closed  hands,  and 
suspected   they   intended    to  throw 
stones  at  the  birds ;  so  I    ,  ent  out 
and  spoke  up  preuy  sharp  to  them. 
They  did  not  answer  me  until  I  told 
them  they  might  be  arrested  for  kill- 
ing the  birds;  then  one  of   them 
opened   up   his  chubby  dirty  little 
hand  which  was  full  of  salt,  and 
says  he,  '  We're  notkillin'  'em,  we're 
tryin'  to  ketch  'em.'  " 


202 


THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


11 


"'Simon  laughed,  and  somehow 
that  touching  little  story,  and  Si- 
mon's "ha,  ha"  seemed  to  break 
down  the  barrier  between  us.  Simon 
told  a  story  about  when  he  was  a  lit- 
tle boy  trying  to  put  salt  on  birds' 
tails  to  catch  them.  And  I  told 
some  more  of  the  afternoon's  in- 
cidents. 

" '  Then  Simon  began  to  tell  me 
some  of  the  happenings  in  Ms  world, 
which  he  had  not  done  for  weeks, 
and  by  the  time  tea  was  over  we  had 
almost  forgotten  our  suspicion  of 
each  other.  I  began  to  hum  an  old 
song  Simon  and  I  used  to  sing  to- 
gether before  we  were  married,  while 
I  was  gathering  up  the  tea  dishes, 
and  Simon  joined  in  and  hummed 

too. 

" '  It  was  five  years  afterwards,  one 


J  i-\ 


\  ! 


%-'?'  ^ 


M.  W. 


A  PICTURE  OF  HOME  LIFE  203 

night  we  were  sitting  side  by  side, 
gazing  into  the  open  fire  in  the  fire- 
place, and  I  had  on  a  pink  waist 
again,  not  the  same  old  waist,  but 
one  something  the  same  shade,  when 
Simon  turned  to  me  and  says  he, 
"Serena,  do  you  know,  I  never  see  a 
pink  waist  without  thinking  of  the 
time  you  and  I  had  the  sulky  spell 
Do  you  mind?     What  was  the  mat- 
ter with   you    that    time    anyway, 
Serena?" 

'""Why  there  was  nothing  the 
matter  with  mc,"  I  says,  "it was 2/ow, 
Simon.  I  thought  you  were  growing 
tired  of  me.  My  heart  was  nearly 
broken,  and  you  know  you  whistled 
to  let  me  see  you  did  not  care." 

" '  "  Why,  Serena,"  says  he  reprov- 
ingly, "  it  was  you  who  had  grown 
tired   of    me.     You  never  seemed 


204       THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


i'\ 


it 


pleased  any  more  when  I  came  home, 
never  dressed  up  or  'pcared  a  bit 
glad  to  see  me.  You  used  before 
that  to  sing  about  the  house,  and 
you  stopped  singing  entirely.  I  had 
to  take  to  whistlin'  to  keep  down 
my  misery,"  says  he. 

"'We  looked  at  each  other  and 
both  of  lis  laughed.  Then  Simon 
stretched  across  his  hand,  laid  it  on 
mine,  and  says  he,  "  Serena,  we  were 
both  so  tuckered  out  with  that 
quarrel  we've  never  hankered  for 
another  one." ' 

"  When  I  had  finished  my  story, 
Jule  gathered  up  her  hat  and  said  it 
was  time  she  was  going  home  to  get 
tea. 

"  '  Why,  girl,'  I  says, '  it's  only  four 
o'clock.'     But  she  would  go. 

"  There  was    a    full    moon    that 


A  PICTURE  OF  HOME  LIFE  205 

night,  and  after  tea  I  saw  Ben  and 
Jule  strolling  up  past  our  place  arm 
in  arm  like  two  lovers.  Jule  had 
on  her  white  muslin  frock  and 
broad-brimmed  hat,  and  looked  as 
pretty  as  a  big  white  daisy." 


at 


|tii    ! 
lit 


XV 

"WELL    IN    THE    MIDDLE 
OF  THE  STREET  " 

"  Genius  is  tlie  power  of  glorUying  theoommonplaoe." 

SUPPOSE  ii    lever 
would    have    been 
dug  there,  if  they 
had     known     the 
place  would   grow 
to  a  village,"  said  my  neighbour  as 
we  were   passing  the  "well  in  the 
middle  of  the  street."     (She  would 
have  considered  it  a  breach  of  eti- 
auette  not  to  accompany  me  to  the 
depot  on  my  departure  for  the  city.) 
"  At  the  time  it  was  dug,"  she  con- 
tinued, "  there  was  nothing  here  but 
a    blacksmith    shop  and   a  tavern. 
206 


^M\- 


■\iM 


MIDDLE  OF  THE  STREET   207 

Some  years  after  houses  began  to  be 
built,  streets  to  be  made,  and  when 
it  was  all  done  lo,  and  behold,  the 
old  well  was  in  the  middle  of  the 
maifi  street. 

"  It  was  very  deep,  and  the  best 
water  that  was  anywhere  about  this 
district ;  on  the  hottest  days  it  came 
up  just  as  cool  as  if  it  were  just  out 
of  an  ice-house. 

"  My  first  recollection  of  the  well 
was  when  I  was  a  little  shaver  going 
to  school.  The  schoolhouse  was  out 
beyond  the  tavern  and  the  black- 
smith shop,  and  on  hot  days  we 
always  stopped  at  the  old  well  and 
let  the  water  trickle  on  our  bare, 
dusty  feet.  We  youngsters  used  to 
call  it  giving  our  feet  a  drink. 
Sometimes  one  giri  would  pump, 
while  the  other  one  would  hold  first 


Ml 
Ml 


midH^ 


2o8        THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


one    foot  and   then  the  other   foot 
under  the  long  nose  of  the  old  pump. 
Ough'  it  makes  the  funny  shivers 
run  through  me  yet  when  I  think 
of  that  cold  water  being  doused  on 
my  hot  feet.     Sometimes  if  the  pump 
had  not  been  used  for  a  few  hours 
we  would  have  to  pour  in  a  little 
water  to  get  it  started.    Give  it  a 
taste,  we  used  to  say,  to  make  it 
hungry  for  more.    We  would  find 
the  water  in  'he  horse-trough,  and 
dip   it  out  with  the  battered  rusty 
tin  cup  fastened  by  a  chain  to  the 

pump. 

"Oh,  that  tin  cup  itself,  if  it 
could  speak  what  it  might  tell  us 
about  the  lips  that  have  touched  its 
brim  in  search  of  the  sparkling 
waters  i^,  held!  Tender,  innocent 
rosebud   lips  made  for  smiles  and 


«;; 


MIDDLE  OF  THE  STREET   209 


thered  tremulous  lips 
breathing  prayer  and  blessing  on 
the  world;  polluted  lips  scorching 
the  earth  with  blasphemies. 

"As  we  got  older,  and  grew  too 
nice  to  go  in  our  bare  feet,  we  still 
stopped  frequently  at  the  old  well— 
for  a  drink,  or  from  habit,  perhaps. 

"We  grew  older  still,  and  we 
liked  to  go  to  the  well  evenings  to 
meet  old  friends— sometimes  girls, 
sometimes  boys,  according  to  taste. 
It  somehow  got  to  be  recognized, 
without  any  previous  arrangement, 
that  we  should  meet  them  there  ;  and 
we'd  dress  up,  and  put  on  some  of  our 
prettiest  things  to  go  to  the  old  well 
in  the  middle  of  the  street.  Heh, 
heh,  I  can  see  just  as  plain  as  day 
Hetty  Hickson  walking  off  towards 
that  old  well  summer  evenings,  her 


h  M  - 


I  ! 


210       THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 

brown  curls  all  tied  up  with  pink 
ribbons,  and  a  few  seconds  aft<ir 
Johnnie  Baird,  wearing  his  Sunday 
necktie,  going  in  the  same  direction. 
They  have  been  married  now  years 

and  years. 

"  Then  we  grew  older  still  and 
settled  in  life,  and  although  we  had 
our  homes  to  attend  to,  we  women 
still  liked  to  iTO  to  the  old  well  at 
times,  to  chat  with  a  neighbour  and 
hear    the    harmless    gossip    of   the 
village  and  neighbourhood.    If  any 
one  was  taken  suddenly  ill  we  d  hear 
it  there ;  or  if  there  was  any  little 
mystery  in  the  village  that  wasn't 
proclaimed  on  the  house-top,  it  would 
be  most  sure  to  leak  out  at  the  well. 
"Then    the  men  gathered  there 
forenoons,  farmers  who  had  brought 
a  grist  to  the  mill,  and  village  men 


k 

n. 

,rs 

ad 
ad 
en 
at 
nd 
the 
my 
ear 
ttle 
sn't 
uld 
rell. 
lere 
ight 
men 


MIDDLE  OF  THE  STREET   211 

who  weren't  fond  cf  work,  and  they 
often  got  so  excited  talking  politics 
you  might  have  heard  them  half  a 
mile  away.  The  farm  horses  at  the 
same  time  were  quietly  drinking  at 
the  horse-trough,  apparently  getting 
more  satisfaction  out  of  their  portion 
of  time  than  the  creatures  credited 
with  having  souls. 

"  The  old  well  served  us  all— man, 
and  beast,  and  bird.     The  cats  and 
dogs  on  hot  days,  found  it  a  con- 
venient place  to  lap  some  comfort. 
The  flocks  of  geese,  from  which  we 
secured  our  feather-beds,  held  noisy 
conventions    there    at  times.     And 
many  a  bird,  that  had  crossed  seas 
and  continents,  came  down  out  of 
the  blue  to  rest  awhile,  and  preen 
its  dainty   feathers   in    the  cooling 
waters. 


an       THE  VILLAGE  ARTIST 


"When  men  came  to  the  village 
selling  medicine,  corn-plastera,  or 
soap ;  or  perhaps  to  talk  and  practice 
mesmerism  or  phrenology,  they  al- 
ways set  up  their  stand,  and  lighted 
their  kerosene  torch  evenings,  beside 
the  well  in  the  middle  of  the  street. 
And  one  time  an  English  Methodist 
who  had  preached  in  the  parks  in 
London  came  to  the  village  to  visit 
some  of  his  relations,  and  he  held  a 
meeting  Sunday  evening  at  the  old 
well.  That  night  it  became  a  well 
of  Samaria  to  Bobby  Brock,  for  there 
he  first  understandingly  heard  of  the 
Living  Water. 

"  Poor  Bobby  was  a  great  drunk- 
ard, but  after  that  night  his  desires 
were  changed  and  he  gave  it  all  up. 
But  once  in  awhile  the  flesh  would 
strive  for  the  mastery,  and  a  terrible 


MIDDLE  OF  THE  STREET  213 

cniving  would  come  over  Bobby.     It 
was  Mrs.  McTavish  who  advised  him 
to  go  to  the  well  in  the  middle  of  the 
street  and  drink  all  he  could  of  the 
cold  water  when  he  felt  the  craving 
for  something  stronger  coming  on. 
Our  house  was  not  far  from  the  well. 
I  could  see  it  quite  distinctly  from 
my  bedroom  window,  and  sometimes 
when  the  moon  was  full  I  have  seen 
Bobby   even   in   the   middle  of  the 
night  at  that  well  drinking,  drink- 
ing eagerly  of  its  wonderful  water. 

"  Another  time  a  chance-man,  as  I 
call  him,  came  to  the  village  and  set 
up  his  wheel  beside  the  old  well.  It 
was  said  that  if  you  placed  twenty- 
five  cents  on  that  wheel  u  would  turn 
around  and  bring  you  back  twenty- 
five  dollars.  The  men  and  boys 
flocked  around  him,  some  of  them 


214        'I  HE  F/LL/tGE  ART/ST 


coming  milej,  like  bees  around  a 
lioneycomb,  un'il  one  day  old  man 
Spence  laid  one  liundred  dollars  on 
the  wheel,  and  it  turned  around  and 
nothing  came  back  to  him.  Then 
the  men  and  boys  loft,  and  no  chance- 
man  can  ever  draw  a  crowd  around 
the  old  well  since. 

"  There  are  many  other  wells  in  the 
village,  but  in  none  of  them  does  the 
water  taste  so  good  as  in  the  well  in 
the  middle  of  the  street.  If  a  stran- 
ger came  into  our  midst  we  would 
never  think  of  offering  him  a  drink 
from  any  other.  Almost  any  hour 
of  the  day,— have  you  noticed  ?— you 
can  see  some  one,  perhaps  a  child 
with  a  two  quart  can,  going  to  the 
well  for  water. 

"  It  would  seem  as  if  one  who  ever 
drank  from  that  well  could  never  be 


-  kk  t 


MinOLE  OF  THE  STREET   215 

Batisfied  with  anything  else— in  the 
way  of  drinks.  When  Paul  Burton 
who  had  been  brought  up  liere  in 
Night  of  the  well,  became  a  great 
traveller  in  foreign  parts,  climbing 
mountains  and  crossing  deserts,  tast- 
ing the  wine  of  every  country,  he 
used  to  write  back  and  say  that  his 
throat  was  parching  for  a  draught 
from  the  well  in  the  middle  of  the 
street. 

"  It  isn't  any  '  old  oaken  bucket ' 
as  you  see,  and  it  has  no  moss  'round 
It,  except  the  mo.s3  o'  green  memories, 
but  that  old  unpainted,  long-nosed 
pump  is  dear  to  the  heart  of  every 
one  who  was  born  and  reared  in  the 
village." 

We  had  reached  the  depot,  and  the 
impatient  engine  was  snorting  in  our 
ears.    Clasping  my  hand  in  farewell, 


2i6       THE  y ILL  AGE  ARTIST 

the  village  artist  said,  while  she  gazed 
meditatively  into  the  Indian  summer 
haze,  which  to  ordinary  mortals  ob- 
scured a  distant  view,  "  We  are  all 
part  an'  parcel  o'  the  great  world's 
picture,  and  the  only  thing  that  will 
make  our  corner  worth  looking  at 
by  and  by,  is  to  do  our  little  part, 
and  do  it  well." 


; 


r>u.r.uej  Chth,$t.50 

Doctor  Luke 
of  The  Labrador 

BV  NORMAN  DUNCAN 
"Mr.  DuncM  U  taervlng  of  much  praJK  for  thii. 
hi8&.tnovd.    .    .    .    In  his  dBcriptive  paaage.  Mr. 
Duncan  »  sincere  to  the  smaUcst  dctmil.     His  charac- 
ttts  are  painted  in  with  bold,  wide  stroJces.  Un- 

lilce  most  first  noTels,  '  Doctor  Luke  ■  waxes  stronirer 
as  It  progresses."— AT.   Y.  E-vning  Pel. 

James  Mac  Arthur,  of  Harper' i 
Weekly,  says:  "  I  am  delighted  with 
•  Doctor  Luke.'  So  fine  and  noble 
a  work  deserves  great  success." 

_    "A  masterpiece  ofsentiment  and  humorous  character, 
nation.     Nothing  more  individual,  and  in  its  own  way 
more  powerful,  has  been  done  in  American  fiction    . 
Thenoryisa  wort  of  art."— Ti,  a.gr.g^m„a/i:,. 

Joseph  B.  Gilder,  of  The  Critic, 
says:  "  I  look  to  see  it  take  its  place 
promptly  among  the  best  selling 
books  of  the  season." 

"It  fiilfilla  its  promise  of  being  one  of  the  best  ttoiiea 
of  the  season  Mr.  Duncan  evidenUy  is  destined  to 
make  a  name  for  himself  among  the  foremost  novelists 
othisdajr.  .  .  .  Doctor  Luke  is  a  magnetic  character, 
and  the  love  stotjr  m  which  he  pUy.  his  part  U  a  sweet 
and  pleasant  idyl.  .  .  .  The  triumph  of  the  book  U  ia 
character  delineation."— a,V<y»  Rcccrd-HiraU. 

Miss  Bacon,  Literary  Editor  of 
The  Booklover's  Library,  says:  "  Of 
all  the  stories  I  have  read  this 
Autumn  there  is  none  that  I  would 
rather  own." 

..'/""r^'"  '^''"'">'«  nt'el  bagreat  enterprise,  aii4 
wiU  probably  prove  to  be  the  greatest  book  yet  pr». 
duced  by  a  native  of  Canada. '  •—  ror.»»  Chit. 


■.'»^r¥ 


8vo,  Cloth 


Price,  tl.JS  "'' 


III      I 


li  '! 


Denizens  of  the  Deep 

By  FRANK.  T.  BULLEN 

THERE  is  a  new  world  of  life  and 
intelligence  opened  to  our  knowl- 
edge in  Mr.  Bullen's  stories  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  sea.  He 
finds  the  same  fascinating  interest  in  the 
lives  of  the  dwellers  in  the  deep  as 
Thompson  Scton  found  in  the  lives  of 
the  hunted  ashore,  and  with  the  keenness 
and  vigor  which  characterized  his  famous 
book  "The  Cruise  of  The  Cachalot"  he 
has  made  a  book  which,  being  based  upon 
personal  observation,  buttressed  by 
f'ientific  facts  and  decorated  by  im- 
ajjination,  is  a  storehouse  of  infor- 
mation—  an  ideal  romance  of  deep  sea 
folk  and,  as  The 
Saturday  Times- 
Review  has  said, 
worth  a  dozen 
novels. 

Not  the  least 
attractive  feature 
of  an  unusually 
attractive  volume 
is  the  series  of 
illustrations  by 
Livingston  Bull 
and  others. 


DENIZENS  OF 
THE  DEEP 


TRAtlK. 

T 
BULLEH 


^'  -*^fT,'fr«lit 


By  MARGARET 

SANGSTER 


CAM,  eacA,  $i.jo 


yanet  Ward 
Eleanor  Lee 

WI T  H  O  UT  exaggeration  and 
with  perfectly  consistent  nat- 
uralness Mrs.  Sangster  has 
produced  two  pieces  of  realism  of  a 
most  healthy  sort,  demonstrating  con- 
clusively that  novels  may  be  at  once 
clean  and  wholesome  yet  most  thorough- 
ly ahve  and  natural.  As  with  all  her 
work,  Mrs.  Sangster  exhibits  her  splen- 
did skill  and  excellent  taste,  and  succeeds 
m  w  nning  and  holding  her  readers  in 
these  two  books  which  treat  of  the  life 
of  today. 

"  If  evtr  thtrt  was  an  author  whost  personality  shone 
through    her    work,    Mrs.    Margar«    E.    Sangster   i. 
that  author.   Mrs.  Sang- 
ster has  written  a  novel 
with   a  moral  purpose. 
That  was  to  be  expected, 
but  it  was  also  to  be  ex 
pected    that   the   story 
would  be  free  from  hys- 
teria   and    intolerance, 
filled  with  gentle  humor,  , 
sane  common  sense  and 
warm  human  sympthy, 
and  saturated  with  cheer- 
ful optimism.  The  book 
fulfills  the  expectation. " 
—  The  Lamf. 


\tI 


Eisays 


Fietion 


\i  ! 
"il 

'■'{■ 


B;' JAMES  M.LUDLOW 

Incentives   for    Life.     Personal 

and  Public.     i2mo,  cloth, 

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"  Dr.  Ludlow  showi  versatility  and  rare  culture  in 
tliis  boolc  of  essays.  From  tile  first  page  one  is  im- 
pressed with  the  beautifully  dear  style,  the  brilliant 
thought  wliicli  flashes  through  every  sentence,  and  the 
marvelous  storehouse  of  illustration  from  which  jhe 
author  draws.  The  vital  importance  of  will  power  m 
the  formation  of  character,  and  the  incentives  which 
lie  back  of  it  as  motives  to  action,  are  set  forth  with 
vigor  and  power." — Chriitian  Obtirfir. 

Deborah'  A  Tale  of  the  Times 
of  Judas  Maccabaeus.  By  the 
author  of  "The  Captain  of  the 
Janizaries."  i2mo,  cloth,  illus- 
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'•Deborah  is  a  genu- 
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thnalist. 

''Nothing  in  the 
class  of  fiction  to  which 
*  Deborah'  belongs, 
the  class  of  which'Ben 
Hur*  and  *Captaiii  of 
the  Janizaries'  are  fa- 
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of  this  story  in  vivid- 
ner.  and  rapidity  of 
action.  The  book  as 
n  whole  has  vigor  and 
color,  "—r^.-  Outlook. 


'WEmxit**-'^- » 


Tales  of  the  West 


Virile,  true,  tender 


By  RALPH    CONNOR 

The  Sky  Pilot;    A  Tale  of  the  Foothills. 

Iimo,  cloth,  illustrated  ....  Price,  51,25 
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spiritual,  wholesome.  His  snle,  fresh,  crisp  and  terse 
accords  with  the  Western  life,  which  he  understands. 
Henceforth  the  foothills  of  the  Canadian  Rockies  will 
probably  be  associated  in  many  a  mind  with  the  name  of 
'Ralph  Connor.'  "  —  Thi  Outlook. 

The  Man  From    Glenoarry;   A  Tale  of 
the  Ottawa. 

Ilmo,cloth Price,  51.50 

"  As  straight  as  a  pine,  as  sweet  as  a  balsam,  as  sound 
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GLEtJuARRY  School   Days;    A  Tale  of  the 
Indian  Lands. 

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In  pathos  it  reaches  the  high  level  of  "The  Sky 
Pilot."  In  atmosphere  it  is  "The  Man  ftom  Glen, 
garry."     In  action  it  rivals  **  Black  Rock." 

Black  Rock;  A  Tale  of  the  Selltirlts. 

I2mo,cloth Price.  $1.25 

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*'  '  Ralph  Connor '  is  some  man's  nom  de  plume. 
The  world  woi.)d  insist  on  knowing  whose.  He  has 
gone  into  the  N-irthw^-st  Canadian  mountains  and 
painted  for  us  a  picture  of  life  in  the  mining  camps  of 
surpassing  merit.  With  perfect  wholesomeness,  with 
exquisite  delicacy,  with  entile  fidelity,  with  truest  pathos, 
with  freshest  humor,  he  has  delineated  character,  haa 
analyzed  motives  and  emotions,  and  has  portrayed  life. 
Some  of  his  characters  deserve  immortality,  so  foithfijlly 
are  they  created  '*  ~Sl.  Louit  Gtobt-Democrat. 

The  world  Hat  known  and  today  Ralph  Connor 
has  been  accorded  thr  signal  honor  of  seeing  his  books, 
by  virtue  of  their  sterling  worth,  attain  a  sale  of  over  one 
aad  one-half  million  copies. 


fHT?WfT^ 


■WIWT 


